


Lizbob Supernatural Watching Notes (season 11)

by lizbobjones



Series: Lizbob Supernatural Watching Notes [11]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Archived From Tumblr, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Fanwork Research & Reference Guides, Meta, Meta Essay, Non Fiction, archived from elizabethrobertajones blog, watching notes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-12 01:22:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 38,580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16863607
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lizbobjones/pseuds/lizbobjones
Summary: This episode absolutely made my skin crawl with second hand embarrassment on the first watch so I just shitposted from behind my hands about how much I was suffering, and only paused to make this one post about it. It sounds randomly out of context because I'm assuming you have been reading me going "Oh god I hate this I hate this I hate this" (but in a fun way).Anyway I now really like this episode but it took some  breathing into a paper bag to handle it socially :P





	1. 11x01

Vague first thoughts (before I really start looking at everyone’s response so sorry if this has been said already) that that episode could have been subtitled “Priorities”. These are all just some vague first viewing thoughts and particularly with Sam n Dean there was a lot to take in before I’d drunk my coffee so my opinion is liable to swing around. :P

Crowley as the example to give us the theme showing us what terrible priorities look like - not just saving his own skin (literally - diverting Hell’s resources to get it back during uncertain times when he already had found a replacement meatsuit and could have just carried on as her for any reason other than being sentimental for being the other body, so it was a completely pointless mission to recover said skin) but screwing around before bothering to call for help when presented with a distraction (… this paragraph not the place to discuss that scene :P). And then being dismissive of the rumours that has Hell jumpy once they are back, instead of acting like a leader and reacting right away to the news to at least consider what others are saying. There’s the sense he doesn’t trust the news his advisers bring him and THEY seem to be questioning his priorities and judgement all the way through with their manner of interruptions. Then he decides that the Darkness could be a good thing for  _him:_  “Darkness, King of Hell?” he says, deciding for himself that if it’s true, then she can be exploited as an ally.

(Hell, outside of Crowley’s circle, rather better priorities :P And Lucifer and/or Michael with the sense to try to warn  _even_  Hell. Beyond Crowley’s influence, Hell in general seems a fairly sensible side in all this.)

Then we’ve got Cas (*aggressively sad face*) who on the complete opposite end of the spectrum from Crowley, puts himself last, not wanting to hurt anyone else and completely fed up of being put in the position where he would. He calls for help from Heaven first, knowing they’d have the power to stop him, and is avoiding people so as not to hurt them, while Crowley was going out of his way to find someone to possess and someone else to kill to make a call. Then in the inversion of Crowley’s… whatever that was… only once he’s called Heaven to come get him, does he call Dean for ~social~ reasons (since he’s not calling for help), being quick to insist that he’s okay and Dean can’t do anything about it if he weren’t, and checking that Dean is also okay while catching up the loose ends of the plot that they didn’t know. Considering from a promo people were upset that Dean was bothering Cas for info on the Darkness, it’s reassuring that the phonecall was A: started by Cas and B: had him aggressively downplaying his issues for the sake of actually wanting a generic plot conversation basically to reassure himself that Dean was okay, and to warn them about Rowena, deliberately being as vague as he could about the fact he’d turned himself in to Heaven.

Heaven on the other hand, or, those angels who came for him, are clearly prioritising a personal agenda against Cas. They tell him the portal has been moved (i.e. to stop him getting back in) but for a moment he thinks he means to where they’ve taken him, when in fact they’re dealing with him apparently off the record. It leaves us wondering who ordered this and why Cas was not taken back to Heaven, but we’re in the dark as him right now (hahahaha I’m sobbing). There’s potentially conflicting motives at work here, and Heaven’s overall priorities have been murky and ominous since the very end of season 9. They don’t give Cas a chance to tell them about the Darkness - he’d probably have done so if he hadn’t thought they were just in transit - and muffle him before he can explain there’s worse things out there than him at the moment, which gives us a negative where their priorities are still focussed on policing their own (Cas is now another one of the rogue angels lol I knew it) and not concerned for the rest of the planet. 

Outside of those two mirrored storylines of getting Crowley back in a room full of demons and Cas in a room full of angels (to opposite beneficial result to them), we have Sam and Dean in an ongoing back and forth about what their own priorities should be, both aware that they’ve dropped off the deep end on the wrong side of “saving people/hunting things”, their show-long moral compass if you want to give them one that actually makes sense for their characters outside of “good/bad”. It’s important there’s examples where neither of them shoot someone who’s infected this episode: Sam didn’t know waiting it out would work but hesitating to just start killing again led him to discover the shelf life the infected have, and later with poor old Mike waiting it out works for Dean as well, based off the info Sam learned from not killing. It’s not ideal since people are dying but they’re not resorting to violence yet; they’re TRYING to make their priority at the very least saving people and not mindlessly hunting things just because it seems like a shoot ‘em up zombie apocalypse all of a sudden, which viewpoint Sam is important for turning Dean onto (i.e. he wouldn’t have waited Mike out if he hadn’t known from Sam’s hesitation to kill earlier that there was a chance they wouldn’t have to shoot him). 

Sam also runs from the infected rather than draw them away and trap them. When Sam does kill one of the infected she bleeds on him, infecting him, and that’s his reward for killing. Sam’s priorities skew towards self-sacrifice as a way to make it up, and he gets his wish. Which… is still not ideal because splitting off from the group and getting infected isn’t exactly a life-long plan to repair the relationship, but he needs big selfless gestures right now I guess. 

Dean starts off in the hospital with hyper focus on getting everyone out and protecting the kid, at my best guess actually probably influenced by their connection with the Mark, so perhaps that focus is compromised. (Count me suspicious about that and the fact that his saving people focus may turn out to be way more complicated than  _just_ getting the baby out of the hospital.) Anyway, in order to get out he has to let Sam risk himself, so that’s a symbolic sacrifice on his part, prioritising random people they’ve just met over Sam for the sake of saving them by agreeing to the plan. Sam then chooses not to tell Dean that he’s infected, letting him discuss a long term response to the problem while hiding that he has apparently a very short shelf life now, perhaps to keep Dean focussed on protecting people instead of rushing back for him, but meaning that’s more lying to Dean about how someone is, treading carefully around what he needs to know, showing 2 examples of self sacrificing morons (*pauses to slap Sam and Cas upside the head*) not letting Dean know how they are, probably with consideration for how terrible his priorities are when people he loves are hurt or in trouble. 

The Darkness in turn shows HER priorities in a different way by yanking Dean out of the car to talk to him but leaving Sam: when they meet up again they discuss why not Sam when he played the more active role in releasing her, showing us again that there was a choice to pick between them where either could have fit her phrasing and in fact Sam was confused because it sounded to him more like something she should have been thanking him for, and as Dean’s memories of the encounter are revealed to us we see she picked on him for having had the mark, picking what basically became an inherent quality over actions. He currently seems more connected to the season’s myth arc than Sam in the usual “i didn’t ask for this” way while Sam if he had been thanked for freeing the Darkness and being commended for his actions might actually seem  _more_  the less neutral path. Dean comments there’s blame for both of them (that he didn’t tell Cain to shove it when he had the chance) but in terms of the end of season 10 he was pointedly passive about removing the Mark at the cost of anyone, while Sam went ahead with it, so if he had been thanked, it would imply the Darkness approved of the actions and the death toll… I’m agreeing she seems less evil than advertised (i.e. to go back to Crowley assuming because she’s ~dark~ and spooky she’ll probably be a good ally seems like a dangerous assumption one episode in). 


	2. 11x03

11x03 - notes I took while actively trying not to be sick

(sickness unrelated to the episode, I woke up feeling terrible. :P In this respect this episode passes with flying colours where The Executioner’s Song failed)

I guess rowena has been naming everything for the last few seasons

melting people is a terrible way to make new friends.

-

oh so we’re only getting millisecond glimpses of Dean & Amara in the fart cloud

I wouldn’t call it that if he hadn’t started it

-

I sad that we just skipped back to the fixed library and that scene from the promo

We never saw who put Cas in a blanket

-

is Cas magnetically attracted to Dean? He gets up and Cas does too?

-

oh sure let the evil child use the internet

maybe she’s skyping with Dean

-

oh good 6 minutes in and Crowley’s calling Rowena a bitch

-

well Amara knows how she was locked up. That’s probably not going to be relevant later

-

I feel like Rowena would have better success if she didn’t call it the “mega coven”

I’m just feeling embarrassed for her. Have a little mystery about it! Subtlety and hints will probably also not get everyone killed by demons

9 minutes in and 4 women have been killed

-

ooh fan fiction gap in the Bunker (aside from the one before the episode started where they fixed the library and chained Cas up). My extensive reading tells me this fade to night time is when all the snuggling happened.

-

okay so Cas is still in the chair but that doesn’t mean they didn’t pause for a break to snuggle in between all the research

-

I like how Sam has to inform Dean that Crowley is awful and this isn’t breaking news, because Dean’s… been a little terrible about that lately. Just a little.

*pauses to have a heart attack because Dean walked behind Cas and nearly touched him*

-

Metatron… stole… Cas’s… car?

I feel an overwhelming urge to go back and rewatch the end of season 10 to find out how I missed that one. Did we see Cas driving anywhere? He just kind of was places after a while. It didn’t help with him randomly disappearing.

Maybe Sam hooked him up with one of the crappy vans he drives after 10x18

How were the cars handled in Angel Heart???

…

If I stop this episode 10 minutes in to watch Angel Heart to see what they did about driving that still counts as watching this episode.

-

We can leave Cas wrapped in blankets and sick - let’s redirect the entire episode to being about reclaiming Cas’s car. NAY, SEASON. MYTHARC TO GET CAS’S CAR BACK.

-

I CAN’T BELIEVE SAM INSULTED THE CAR.

Cas is so offended. My poor child.

Dean… is not helping that much.

Cas I know it’s a great blasphemy and would probably not do well for your PR issues in some parts of the fandom but honestly, just insult Baby a few times to reassert yourself.

You can have an apologetic moment with her later to say you didn’t really mean it.

-

okay so when they get to the hospital Cas is just there.

then I guess Sam walks to the motel and Dean n Cas drive to the bar in Baby?? I must have assumed Sam took Cas’s car or something. No exterior shot of the motel…

Dean and Cas are so bad at walking through a door

grumpy caaaaat <3

the things Dean must have seen taking Cas shopping

bring your daughter to wooooork daaaaay

I guess they left Sam behind and took Baby but we don’t see the car

okay Sam and Cas head out together so they must take Baby?? Or Sam steals a car??

the mini golf is just across the way from the motel though

yeah they took Baby

aw Cas and Amelia is so sad every time :(

there is no explanation of how Dean n Claire got to the farm

I forgot Claire literally said wayward

so Claire and Sam are leaning on Baby and Dean n Cas are just chilling in the background…

“KEEP AN EYE ON HIM HE’S BEEN THROUGH ENOUGH” I AM SO SAD ABOUT CAS

Finally a long shot of the carpark. Yeah, no Cas’s car.

*hug* Yes Cas needs lots of those. :3

I love how her nails were a similar colour to his trenchcoat

Okay so I suppose that does answer the question that Cas just hopped in the Impala at the end of that episode.

Can we just say Cas lived in the bunker from 10x18 onwards and we just… somehow… didn’t see… any… evidence of it? Despite the fact it was totally happening?

Maybe it was laundry day in 10x19 and there was naked Cas wandering around the bunker and that’s why Dean went to go kill a billion vampires to blow off steam

Okay this is a thing now.

-

*goes back to Cas convulsing on the floor*

Maybe I’ll just watch Angel Heart for the second time in a row

-

AAAH DEAN TOUCHING CAS. AAAAAAAAAAAAH.

AAAAAH CAS TALKING ABOUT SALSA

DEAN STILL TOUCHING CAS

-

Dean that is a lot of touching.

-

I hope no one saw me flail like that when Dean blanketed Cas up again. Let’s just assume Dean put the blanket on Cas in the first place.

-

I can not believe Cas is literally offering to help them find Metatron while wrapped in a blanket and prone to convulsive fits because he is salsa.

-

I’m having an internal argument if Cas saying “perp” is worse than Rowena and her “mega coven”

Awarding Rowena the extra cringe factor points because Cas always says weird stuff but Rowena should know better

-

Meanwhile Amara is enjoying aesthetic nature posts on Tumblr. Does that make me evil for scrolling slowly through those cool pictures of volcanoes with lightning storms?

(I suppose they can’t put anything too gross on a screen the child actress is looking at on camera)

I like her room. Like one token pink light in all the doomy hell bedroom stuff which is more like something from a church or something

Hey Emily Swallow. So you’re an “us” and Amara is a separate entity for now?

But they’re a we and will eventually join up.

Okay.

Emily!Darkness is literally the mother figure to tiny cute Darkness child who is also herself.

-

I suppose if they’re meant to join up and become a thing, the child part can still be influenced and taught - and Emily!Darkness is still trying to guide her so even she sees the need to drop by and influence her - which means there is actually the potential for struggle for influence and guidance on her, hence Crowley’s whole teaching thing. Which means she may be given a choice at some point to be wholly evil or not since this is turning into a nature vs nurture thing with nurture being given some serious consideration for effect? And Emily!Darkness can be thwarted by the kid not becoming her…

-

Amara just suck Crowley’s soul out now.

-

Who are these guys?

Ginger demon and suit guy. Is he an angel?

Yep. They’re angel and demon drinking buddies. What is this.

Have they been doing this for years? I feel like they’ve been doing this a while. Even though they threaten each other with angel blades?

Are they like, informants or something? Spies who’ve been meeting up and exchanging notes? And they’ve just bonded and become friends? How does this even happen??

*takes 4 listens to work out the demon said “King’s holed up…” not “Cain’s holed up”…* Dangit mumbling actors, don’t get me angry over your bad enunciation seeming to suggest horrific plot stuff.

It’s bad enough we’re getting this random exposition scene just to tell us what’s going on.

I’m not sure why I’m expecting Bucklemming to learn Show Don’t Tell any time soon.

I bet no one kills them

“After Hannah died Heaven’s pretty much been a suck sandwich”

Now they’re complaining. You guys should rebel and go on a road trip. I believe in u

-

I hope this blah angel and mumbling demon do not become unlikely heroes of the season

-

hey look they’re both still alive

-

okay so Sam insults Cas’s car and goes through a woman’s handbag without permission SAM you are so fuckkin’ rude today

-

*Sam randomly defines scrying for us because not everyone’s read the wikipedia entry lately*

*while the witch is playing dumb and Sam is apparely caught up on the fact she carries around a chunky pentagram, Dean cleverly intuits that women carry mirrors because they have nice makeup and correctly identifies the vanity mirror* blah blah Dean and femininity blah blah

-

… Is that gift bag that Crowley brings stuff for Amara in the exact same pattern as the one that Cas brought Claire the grumpy cat in?

See, wasting an hour to watch Angel Heart in the middle of this episode paid off!

-

Crowley is really underestimating how to deal with Amara. He’s terrible about being evil enough. Is this meant to show that he’s totally useless about realising what he’s dealing with? You’d think considering last episode he rolled up with a van of people with souls for her to eat they’d know to write him… evil. Because we had the reset button pushed on the back of his head. Crowley thinking she needs pretty things and cute books is going against their own idea of showing her Hitler speeches. Like, at least be consistent with how much he personally is or isn’t responsible for corrupting her. Unless he went soft again abruptly in the middle of the episode

-

Anyway here is the thing I’ve been waiting for: Dean in a non-standard shirt! I am easily swayed.

-

Oh good Rowena is flirting with Sam again. :P

-

Meanwhile Cas!

that’s Dean’s handwriting I think in all the notes he was left

:3

-

He’s taken the blanket off which means he was mostly just doing that for sympathy or Dean was mothering him too much

-

Oh god Cas is watching the porn on the laptop? At least this is why they were in there and we’re not going to have actual physical presence of the women from it like people were dreading?

-

*destresses when Cas wonders about the terrible pun and closes the laptop* … I’m not sure what sort of points to award Bucklemming for this.

this episode has been like 90% stewing in second hand embarassment

well 40% stewing in second hand embarrassment 50% watching Angel Heart instead

-

oh good Crowley is letting Amara eat demons now

-

weirdly considerate of the meatsuit problem wth

-

i mean from an “avoiding soulless lunatics” thing >.>

-

Amara is such a sweetie. I hope this child acting her isn’t getting existential dread from reciting these lines.

-

Yay Rowena in the dungeon! Finally! She gets to chill out in the same chair as Crowley did once.

And Rowena talking about Sam touching her underwear.

And a Charlie mention. YOU DON’T GET TO SAY HER NAME, BUCKLEMMING.

-

I am sad Dean in that shirt didn’t last long tbh there was no reason he couldn’t have worn it the entire episode after putting it on.

-

But on the other hand my prediction that now he’d roll up his sleeves more often because of no make up department complaints has panned out \o/

-

oh yay that was a different reaction shot to Cas being gone in the promo than here and we get Dean looking much more concerned.

-

and back to not looking at Cas >.>

(Rowena called his halo “bent” and I don’t know if I should laugh or cry)

-

I think Crowley is having existential dread

-

I like his new nanny for Amara

-

there’s 10 minutes left why is it all Crowley stuff where is Dean saving Cas? We were promised everyone caring about Caaas

-

Is… Dean going to get precious about Sam not killing Crowley?

Rowena is just sowing seeds of dissent between them for her own ends by pointing out all the endless secrets, but it’s worrying she’s doing it by “Cas wouldn’t be in this pickle if not for Sam” because ouch. Don’t, Rowrow.

-

Cas is the monster of the week and this is the cold open. I have no idea what the rest of the episode was.

-

I can’t believe he broke that poor girl’s phone. RUDE.

-

“You’re joking, I’m in heels” yes good. :P

-

Jensen: “hey Misha just like grunt and smash things”  
Misha: *grunts and smashes things*  
Jensen: “lol”

-

I’m not ready for this confrontation

(Dean isn’t either since he has to stop to check out a random woman before going in to deal with Cas)

-

Maybe I’ll go watch Angel Heart again

-

*peers between fingers*

Now the question is did Cas stop choking that girl because Dean asked him to, or just because he felt like beating up Dean more?

-

*Cas is convulsing again* Oh god Dean touches his faaace.

-

She’s in HEELS oh my GOD. WINCHESTERS ARE USELESS.

-

Oh god are we doing the apology scene in the last 2 minutes in dialgue written by Bucklemming?

*resumes peering between fingers*

-

Dean’s face is so messed up and Cas hasn’t healed it. Why can’t we have mutual face touching?

No Dean refuses the mutual face touching because he’s too self-punishing. Oh my god Dean get some self-esteem so we have have mutual face touching.

-

Well good they don’t seem to be able to look at each other either of them.

But Cas n Dean in the bunker together as the last scene!

-

If this is the last scene with them I’m gonna have to guess Cas left on the Meanwhile Cas to reclaim his car from Metatron

AND Robbie gets to write the explanation for where Cas went and he’s considerate like that.

(And owes me an apology for not telling us Cas’s car was missing in 10x18 or 10x20)

I approve.

-

Uhoh, teenage Amara. She has a scarier dress.

Thinking of Angel Heart, wasn’t that advertised with terrible PR about how the worst monster was a teenage girl?

Amara vs Claire would be a hell of a thing while she’s still a teen. As long as Claire didn’t get her soul eaten at the end.

-

that wasn’t… as bad as I feared. A+ for a Bucklemming episode. Probably a C- compared to the actual show as a whole. Raised up by that 40 minute chunk a third of the way through written by Robbie Thompson.


	3. 11x04

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This episode absolutely made my skin crawl with second hand embarrassment on the first watch so I just shitposted from behind my hands about how much I was suffering, and only paused to make this one post about it. It sounds randomly out of context because I'm assuming you have been reading me going "Oh god I hate this I hate this I hate this" (but in a fun way).
> 
> Anyway I now really like this episode but it took some breathing into a paper bag to handle it socially :P

See now I am just thinking that there’s this whole messed up thing that this show has inadvertently exposed: the rule that stuff only happens when stuff is on screen. 

All that driving literally does not matter to the plot because it can’t because if it did, every episode would be Baby, but as soon as we actually HAVE the episode where we see all the driving, then it turns out that stuff is happening because stuff is on screen, which is great in the short term of this one episode (I’m not taking a break to stop myself from crying why are you looking at me like I am?) - now it’s just as bad as any time they tell us that they’re characters in a book or that there’s an AU where they’re their actual actors or whatever… Now we know that driving time is important, and that stuff happens when the camera turns its way, we all have to go back into a state of wilful, forced ignorance that nothing happened when the camera wasn’t on them. It’s making us aware of the camera’s gaze and how that creates plot stuff on screen.

Any time they skip ahead a mile (like in the opening of 11x01 for a recent example) before continuing a conversation that lead on directly from a comment from in their time an hour before, they’re not just letting it fade from place to place as an artifice of the camera to move them around and we let it pass as a tool of storytelling… (honestly despite my whining about car continuity in the moment of watching I never notice or care about this stuff unless it’s TOO ridiculous - 10x22 is the only one that tripped me up mid-episode rather than in hindsight)

Now we know that the gaps between stuff are important or that stuff could have happened, and if they  _don’t_  have earth-shattering conversations in these gaps then now we know that they’re perfectly capable of doing it…

I mean this entire show is built around 2 guys who roadtrip extensively and only have important conversations at the most dire moments when the plot forces it - either for plot or emotional significance - we know that if they have not communicated X Y or Z to each other on screen, then they  _absolutely_  have not ever mentioned it or any of this stupid emotional twaddle about what they dream about on any of their 3 day road trips between every friggin episode to get to the monster of the week.

As someone who spends a lot of time side-eyeing the car continuity this is making me cry.

…

I’m not crying.


	4. 11x05

I really liked 11x05 and I honestly don’t have many interesting thoughts about it because I just sort of coasted along with it, laughing and enjoying myself, and then it got sad and dropped some heavy plot stuff, and then it was over and I was sitting here blinking. 

Not going to lie, I spent most of the episode waiting for that throwaway line in the opening about the other town turning on itself because of rabid possum meat to become relevant. I somehow feel like it was even though it wasn’t? We’ve already had one town in the opening of the season get basically destroyed because of Amara, and then that line at the start of this episode left me feeling like the threat to the town was that Amara might just hang around harvesting at least enough souls to have another small scale disaster with people turning on people as the number of violently inclined soulless people increased? 

(And… did they just wait for her to show up after what Sydney said about calling her and then she never showed? Or did they kind of figure they had no idea what to do about her and make a tactical retreat to intentionally avoid Amara?) 

Anyway, there was the sense that the community was in danger (never mind that the house was its main tourist attraction and that being under threat because of the murders is another blow to the community) and I don’t know if it was because that line at the start left me edgy that the same would happen here, or if that was something that was meant to be implied all over the place, but however I ended up feeling it, I kind of liked this sense that entire towns are under threat from Amara, and the fact that they only cleared up the mess that they stumbled on and left without dealing with the main problem or even being sure they had found all the soulless people left me feeling edgy and also kind of sympathetic to how much they seem to be treading water on this - they’ve started a couple of episodes apparently searching for the Darkness or Amara but in fact they can just about offer a tiny band aid over any of the problems she causes. 

(I have more questions about how she got out from under Crowley’s nose and why she was doing ghost tourism - based on the cold open with a Ghostfacers name drop I can only conclude that she found their website and was entranced and decided to do exactly what those kids were doing.)

Anyway it also reminded me of Mother’s Little Helper, and how that community was shaken by all the soulless people, and I liked how they now seem to be exploring the differences in soulless people to explain the… maybe not quite continuity issues with how they’re portrayed but definitely how it’s never really been clear how it works… At this point I can’t remember if some of the stuff Len and Sydney were saying was established on the show or meta I’ve read/written about how soullessness might *possibly* work, but it did seem to be bridging some gaps.

TL;DR I’m pretty sure rabid possum meat town was Amara’s doing too, and Sam didn’t google that one well enough. :P


	5. 11x07

Haha, Sam tidied his room. I told you Cas trashed it and Sam wasn’t going to be impressed when he got back and reclaimed it. 

/useless character studies for 10 points

…

*Sam and Dean walk into another room that has been trashed and Sam immediately accuses Cas of having put the mess there*

~conflict~

I’m squinting into the library in the background and I don’t see any sign of Cas. I’m assuming since we cut to driving to the case the subtext of this opening is that Cas is busy trashing another room and it’s not the library, Sam’s room or the war room.

*shrugs*

* * *

I hope someone has made a gif of the extremely long slow zoom into the bunny’s lifeless eyes.

* * *

 

I can’t believe they made a link between Dean’s salted caramel thing and Donna having it as her weakness. Argh.

* * *

 

Omg is Donna ACTUALLY going to try sawing the rabbit head off? I was JOKING about that.

* * *

I’m pretty sad this is not actually an Easter Bunny MotW even though I knew it wasn’t.

* * *

 

The good news is I also own creepy jester masks. This is still emotionally relevant to me even if it’s not the Easter Bunny.

* * *

I’m starting to feel really sorry for Doug2.

ALSO Dean was totally all over the Doug issue when they first met at the start, like he obviously immediately got what was going on, and then Sam’s asking awkward and slightly insensitive questions and making Donna prickly about it? I mean for one thing Dean  _remembered_  Doug when Sam didn’t. Did they even cross Doug1′s path in 10x08 or was that entirely Jody’s thing?

Sam’s getting a lot of awkward lines in this. Like, he’s being extremely socially awkward. 

And I’m starting to feel like Dean remembers Donna’s relationship woes from all the way back in mid season 9. Like, what a fuckin’ sweetie. 

... ugh show why are you doing this to me Dean x Donna 

Sam pls follow Dean's lead on this I know you and Donna bonded a bit over the kid getting shot because that's your thing this year, but I think Dean's got a better understanding of the Doug issue

* * *

Who  _intentionally_  makes an evil-looking clown mask? Like, the bunny head you could excuse for general wear and tear because things made like that such as stuffed toys often start decomposing weirdly when they’re old, but that mask is just unsettling and it was designed that way.

I’m glad their clown murders are as expertly filmed as ever. After a gratuitous reminder of 7x14 I thought they might not live up to it, but that murder was short and sweet but completely creepy with that random burst of music. \o/ Nowhere near as epic as the original fight but at least it’s trying really hard.

The clown’s crying a tear of blood after the first murder which is something we’ve talked about a little recently for being really symbolic.

…

That awkward feeling when you get in the elevator and hold the door for someone but then it’s the bloodsoaked manifestation of your childhood fear.

C’mon Sam. You’re a professional.

Just don’t pee and we’ll count this as a win.

* * *

Ghosts are moving a lot more like demons these days… that’s basically the same effect but more translucent until he manifests properly.

I suppose that might come down to a 'finally'? since they've never been linked like that in 11 years before, despite being the same thing :P

* * *

… Wow, that got grim :| 

… Of course it would be a creepy deer mask at the end. 

* * *

Okay, Dean didn’t actively swing the car off the road when Sam said “the Cage” which is better than I expected.

* * *

* * *

… Wait hang on they actually did imply Cas went to Gaza?

 


	6. 11x11

FUCK YOU ROBBIE THOMPSON

STRONG LETTER TO FOLLOW

That was an unnecessarily thorough recap of Dean and Amara. >.>

-

Banshee episode??? I’ve been asking for a while. Also was quietly hoping since the episode description, without wanting to ask Robbie on top of his long list of other things he needs to do for us, but hey if he found the time…

-

Sam angst time. Helpfully conveyed by the camera staying squarely focussed on Dean for most of the conversation. He seems pretty affronted by Sam being worried about Cas, which makes me think that Dean has been sulking about Casifer turning down the ride and therefore Dean going into a strop about Cas being all independent and self-sufficient is more about Dean feeling rejected and maybe a little guilty he wasn’t worrying about Cas as much as Sam openly is? This is what happens when you repress everything.

-

Was Lucifer feeding seagulls for fun? I always knew they were the spawn of the devil. CONFIRMED.

…

Yeah literally nothing in that scene was about the seagulls after Lucifer fed them. 

I KNEW IT.

Asshole birds.

-

Can Misha actually whistle though or did someone have to do this for him.

-

This poor other angel… I get the feeling that he’s not going to do very well… Ah, the lovely diverse melting pot of angels who get murdered.

-

SQUIRREL.

That had to be a CGI squirrel right? You couldn’t actually convince a squirrel to fortuitously run through the back of the shot while filming. They’re pretty panicky… A film crew setting up nearby would send them to the top of the trees for the rest of the day.

I like this whole Lucifer and nature thing, but also that angels in general apparently fit into the landscape so much it doesn’t wig out the squirrels. They’re totally cool with a couple of angels - even  _Lucifer_  - standing around near their trees and they’ll just carry on their business like nothing is happening.

-

While we’re talking about the wrong shoulder, though, Lucifer touching the poor angel on the left shoulder…

-

*quietly adds another tally to the billions of angels that have been killed by Cas’s own hands one way or another*

He went by the good old splatter method, which I was wondering if the way Amara melted that angel a couple of episodes ago was a special effects increase or her method of melting them. 

-

I guess them being 15 minutes away from the case is why we get Sam and Dean back in the Bunker in their suits because a 15 minute drive is less than most people commute to a desk job. It’s nice to know that after literally every scene break we might get the Casifer vs Dean scene.

I’m not jumpy.

-

I’m going to be honest I double checked who had said “awesome” there because even though it sounded like Dean and probably was him, Sam trying to be the grumpy angsty one silently cleaning a load of guns in the opening made me suspicious they were flipping their roles. 

(It was Dean)

Dean is also already fixating on their retirement joking about them making a reservation.

Dude you haven’t even met your love interest of the week.

Oh okay he’s being a little pessimistic about their chances.

(The fact this is also 15 minutes away from them again emphasises that this could be a next stage of life for them? Like, literally if they grew old in the Bunker and wanted to retire, this would be an option they’d look at :P)

-

Deer in the background! 

This episode is literally a walk in the park.

-

Oh ew no, antler chandelier thing. Never mind, Lucifer is live and let live with evil birds but humans make huge hunting trophy things.

-

I like Sam going off to investigate on his own and fading around the room in time lapse with the voice over of Dean and the guy he’s talking to. Efficient. 

There’s a chess set on the table which is probably important given how much energy this fandom has spent analysing game boards.

-

Meanwhile Dean is left alone to have his meet cute with Mildred. 

…

Same, Mildred. Same.

-

Aw shiiiit this guy’s wife dumped him via emoji-filled text? That’s a horrific Cas parallel if ever I saw one.

…

Never mind.

He’s the Cas here.

….

I think Robbie has been watching the fandom again. There has been  _plenty_  of time between Scout’s hilarious poop emoji theme for Cas texting Dean and whenever he would have written this.

(I’m tempted to risk spoiling the episode for myself and going to Scout’s blog to see if there’s a poop emoji comic for this episode yet :P)

This is literally the most embarrassing but fanon accurate Destiel parallel ever if Robbie wanted to tell us about their marital strife.

-

Like at what point do you say it’s all just a coincidence?

 _Robbie knows about the No Homo Intern_.

-

“Well that’s one way to fly.”

This is the look of a man dumped by his angel via poop emoji.

What has Lucifer been texting him??

-

But seriously this episode for Dean so far has been “pfft who cares about Cas he’s fine” *Cas is not fine* “Hey I’m some random bloke in marital strife who is going to have a needlessly long conversation about our emoji-loving spouses with you” 

And then,

“ _I just wish she’d call me back_.”

*stares blankly into the void of painful Destiel feels*

-

…

What the fuck is this episode.  _Viagra thief???_

_…_

Dean  _stealing_  Viagra?

Robbie you are on thin ice with me since this Casssifer thing you know.

-

I suppose we’re pushing the Dean is an old man theme since he’s now acting too tired to keep digging a grave. Is the lopsidedness of the grave a comment on how he can’t put in the same amount of effort? Sam’s side is much wider.

-

TBH it’s belatedly occurred to me that if Dean wandered into the kitchen in the opening still in his robe but carrying the local paper under his arm, then they get the local paper delivered to the Bunker.

-

Heeeey Robbie I am forgiving you 1 tiny point because you brought the Green Cooler back from death, in much the same way Dabb made up for the whole Cas’s Car debacle by restoring it briefly to its rightful owner.

-

Omg they’re actually having a conversation while grave-digging. Considering how bad they are at discussing stuff this actually felt more honest and open than normal, even in the way Dean shut it down because maybe there was nothing more to say rather than because he was trying to bury the truth, as there was no bad truth lurking under the surface there. If a shit ton of dramatic irony about Lucifer being safely boxed up. Sam’s in a terrible place but he HAS learned to tell Dean pretty quickly when something’s bothering him…

-

Hm, they’re not in the suits they were in in the preview so no Casifer yet?

-

BANSHEE MURDER TIME.

Poor guy. He may have been terrible at resolving his marriage but he didn’t deserve that.

-

Oh good someone got Mildred a blanket. 

Sam is like “omg for once in my life this isn’t happening to me” … He’s going to slip away to talk to that other lady and leave Dean with Mildred, isn’t he?

Yeeep.

-

Ooh, it’s the deaf character we were teased about a long time ago. USEFUL in this case.

Sam knows some sign language! What a sweetie.

I feel like I’ve seen that headcanoned a few times just as a “He  _would_.” So that’s nice for the fandom, as Robbie is in an eternally giving mood.

….

Hm, is she the baby from the cold open because that was 30 years ago, and she’s looking very ominously at them talking about the monster feeding.

-

BANSHEES

I’d say told you so but I don’t think I ever did say “banshee” anywhere regarding this episode despite my hopes so I can’t actually claim this one.

However there IS a motw request sheet from me on my blog where I underlined “easter bunny” and “banshee” so I’m claiming 10 points for each.

-

Oh yay there are two kinds of banshee. Evil and good fairies!

Love ya Robbie.

(Robbie are you subscribed to my blog? Next episode you write have Dean cough once for yes, twice for no.)

-

“they only prey on the vulnerable” “Harold’s wife just left him” *Dean in the promo pics with bloody eyes*

Oh hon.

-

I bet Casifer between now and then.

-

Oh no. DEAN Don’t split off from Sam. Don’t go back to the Bunker alone in your suit like the prophecy foretold.

I’m not ready for this tbh. I mean, thank you spoilers for letting me know when it would happen but no thanks. I’m out.

-

*returns with a huge cup of tea*

-

Oh fuck off Robbie do you KNOW how long it’s been since we’ve heard “Hello Dean”??

-

(I actually don’t but it feels like too long.)

-

Somehow these slumped shoulders are not Cas slumped shoulders but Lucifer slumped shoulders. Something a shade more relaxed there.

-

I do like how Lucifer likes getting things done himself though. I have been giggling about him personally digging the hole to excavate Death for like… 6 years now?

This would be totally in character even if he DID have a ton of minions.

Anyway point is he took the trenchcoat off (for symbolism!) because he was messing around in the Bunker and didn’t expect to be interrupted but he’s rolled his sleeves up to get to work.

Not a seduction.

-

*Dean finally starts opening up about his problem with Amara to “Cas”*

*Lizzy checks Neko Atsume*

-

I hate Lucifer using Cas’s voice. 

Dammit Misha.

Dean look so freaked out but he also checked out Cas’s mouth for a sec while trying to work up the courage to start talking so I’m guessing he’s at war inside himself.

Cas is acting weird, but he’s hot. *error*

-

Aww Mildred and Sam are hanging out. She’s flirting with hi too, although I think that’s just her personality. She likes Dean better.

-

Aw no Marlene is the banshee.

Or… connected somehow.

I’m somewhat suspicious Mildred knows more than she’s let on as well.

-

Hee there’s a cheap spell that replicates the demon wall flinging.

-

Nope, Marlene is hunting the banshee? She has a gold knife. 

Nice. 

Good vocation for a deaf hunter, tbh, to specialise in banshees. Unless she is cold open baby out for revenge.

I hope she sticks around and helps them murder things. What a good side character.

-

Yep she’s cold open baby.

Awww no, a banshee was the last thing she heard. :( 

-

Yay badass lady hunter off-screen. New random fave character we’ll never see. “She raised you?” “More like trained me” Winchester paralleeeeeels. You’ll fit in here.

-

Aww the hunter died of cancer. More hunters dying of natural causes in an episode where retirement is the topic of the day.

-

Yay Men of Letters. I like her backstory. She is a Legacy like them which means she is totally allowed to chill in the Bunker and it would honestly be rude not to let her have a room and access to their resources.

-

… Cut to Lucifer pillaging said resources.

-

Lucifer nearly broke character with “Attraction?!” (This is hilarious because even though the Lucifer or Misha voice isn’t high pitched, coming out of the Cas voice is like pubescent squeaking in comparison. Cas is somehow winning in a manly posturing display just by existing because slipping up means squeaky voices and forcing a comparison to Cas’s growl.)

Anyway I’m guessing Cas yelled something really rude in Lucifer’s ear at that point. 

(Dean goes on to clarify in a better, less romantic way about him and Amara and how he’s scared. Good.)

-

Get yer hands off ‘im, Lucy.

-

… 

Dammit they’re so touchy feely as Dean walks past “Cas”. I haaaaate thiiis.

-

*rewatches from the “Dean thinks it’s Cas” perspective now I’m done staring at Lucifer*

Dean looks so shifty and ashamed about feeling attracted to Amara and OKAY YEAH admitting you feel that way about a very obvious villain is also embarrassing but the way he looks at Cas and confesses it so sadly is just… like, “I am so sorry this is happening between us can you even understand?!” And then he hastily says a lot more words about being scared and not wanting to make it sound JUST like she won him over romantically, trying to I dunno play down the connection as  _obviously I don’t want this_.

And then Casifer puts his hand on Dean with the quietest “Hey,” and Dean jumps a mile and gives Casifer that panicked look we were over analysing… Does he know this isn’t Cas yet? That shoulder touch seems to be the first moment he could possibly know after how open he just was, which means if he starts suspecting now then ha ha ha he only realised after Lucifer did the special shoulder touch wrong. And if he DOESN’T realise, how scared is he of Cas’s touch all of a sudden when getting so emotionally vulnerable, and then to have Cas reach out and touch him when he’s feeling so raw and exposed and they’re on the edge of all these unsaid things as they have to negotiate Amara coming between theeeeemm…

It’s only after that that Cas potentially gets super creepy by suggesting it’s a good thing as Lucifer realises that he has Amara bait standing right in front of him.

-

I wonder if he would have tried to kiss Cas if Sam hadn’t phoned.

-

I hope Sam and Dean weren’t talking plot because I have snorted tea everywhere reading the subtitles.

-

*hacks and coughs*

-

Okay yeah Dean x Mildred is go.

Casifer is bemused in the background.

“How do these idiots get anything done?”

“ _These idiots once managed to beat me. ME._ ”

-

TBH Casifer hanging out there listening to them talking about using people as bait is not at all ominous immediately after discovering Dean was perfect bait.

-

Casifer like “omg he seriously considered kissing me again before he walked out the door. This is going to be extremely easy. HEY CAS what if we were going to use him as bait to get Amara and we lured him there by inviting him on a romantic picnic? Bet it would work.”

-

Sam giving the revenge talk to (Eileen? I’m not good at catching names)

Oh NO Sam talking about season 1 again. 

Sam you’re kind of adorable this episode.

(She had better not die. She has no idea what to do after which means that her fate is kind of symbolic for THEIR what next… And Sam’s prodding Dean about wanting something more in 11x04 was ALSO about himself. Eileen is peeeerfect for Sam’s description!)

-

Omg Mildred is playing matchmaker with Sam and Eileen so she’s dragged Dean off for his pep talk.

They’re looking at the fuckin’ setting sun *has a tantrum about Cas and how that’s blatantly connected with him not least because the bloody Gas n Sip window Dean once stared longingly at him through in 9x06* 

Why is it always 9x06.

Anyway, setting suns also symbolic of timing moving on and retirement, which is what they’re discussing from the promo video, and frankly we’re 31 minutes into the episode and they decided to use THIS as a promo, and not Mr Poop Emoji, and I am having a lot of feelings. This conversation with Mildred nearly made me cry just from the promo.

-

Dean x Mildred though.

-

Robbie why are you making me ship this.

-

They have has n hers gold knives.

-

“LIFE ON THE ROAD”

“NAH I HAD MY FUN”

“ACTUALLY YES I DO”

“FOLLOW YOUR HEART”

-

*throws a shoe at Robbie*

-

Fuuuuuuck Dean is the victim because his heart is broken and full of poop emojis.

-

Yey girl power! Eileen and Mildred should hunt monsters together.

-

“You could call but I won’t answer”

-

“OH Dean and Mildred are having their moment how cute -”

“I can tell when someone’s pining for someone else”

*gets up and recounts the entire episode to my mum in anguished tones*

I’m SHAKING.

I’m scared to see Dean’s reaction.

I MEAN SURFACE LEVEL IS THIS SUPPOSED TO MAKE YOU THINK IT’S ABOUT AMARA? DEAN SAID HE WAS CONNECTED TO HER SO IT SEEMS LIKE THAT MIGHT BE WHAT WE’RE SUPPOSED TO THINK. BUT LIKE NO. FUCK THAT HE’S TERRIFIED OF HER. THERE’S A WEIRD DUMB CONNECTION AND THERE’S GENUINE EMOTIONAL FEELING.

PIIINING?

SOMEONE ELSE? WHO ALREADY EXISTS????

My gravestone will say that Robbie Thompson killed me.

-

I need another cup of tea.

-

*Dean brushes it off but “lucky lady” omg his face.*

-

#Dean is bi

-

#Destiel confirmed

-

Heeee female gaze shot of Sam and Dean walking away.

-

Fade to black with 5 minutes left? That’s never a good sign.

-

HEY IT’S MY FAVOURITE TABLE. THE BRODEPENDANCY TABLE. 

Dean and Sam are talking about “Cas”. I’m going back to bed.

-

Dean thinks something was off with Cas. Good. 

Because he would not have opened up to Cas SO MUCH if he thought something was off initially.

Which means the “Wrong Shoulder Mate” theory is confirmed

-

Omg are they going to have a real talk about the shit Lucifer showed Sam.

THE PURGATORY THING?

DEAN, YOU BETTER LET SAM OFF THE HOOK FOR THIS.

NOW.

YEESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

“I HAVE”

THANK YOU ROBBIE.

Sweet jesus what is this episode.

It’s gonna end with Gabriel busting in and throwing them a party.

-

Sam don’t ask Dean why the Banshee went for him.

He’s pining. You can’t rush that.

-

MUSIC JUST LIKE DEAN ASKED FOR TO DROWN OUT THE EMO TURMOIL IN HIS HEAD

(Meta from people who are good at catching and understanding lyrics to be reblogged later.)

-

SAM HAS A BOX.

THERE IS EMOTIONALLY GUTTING STUFF IN IT.

SAM SOMEHOW MAKES IT MORE DEPRESSING BY PUTTING A RETIREMENT HOME FLYER IN IT.

-

DEAN’S ROOM. That’s fun to see any day.

He looks so small and alone in bed. Sam fills his bed up better which may just be because he needs to curl up to fit.

-

Oh for fuck’s sake, Dean glanced at his empty side of the bed and now he’s ANGSTING.

STOP IT.

-

*credits*

Oh good. I’m free of this torture. >.>


	7. 11x14

this time last year Berens made me throw up from watching The Executioner’s Song… the gifs of Dean on the submarine look ominously tilty so let’s just call this episode a win if I don’t get physically ill from it

-

they showed the back of Charlie’s head as the first thing on screen and I took a 10 minute break

-

Thuuule??? Okay NOW I have expectations for an Aaron mention. (Was the connection too obvious that no one commented on it but I just didn’t realise if nazis were involved clearly it would be these guys?)

-

although the prospect of Dean on a submarine kind of obliterated the bi!Dean fandom so we’ve been understandably distracted from hoping he’d remember/call Aaron for info

-

This episode has utterly unfair standards from the fandom going into it already

I need to lower my expectations to the thought this episode will be utter tripe just to compensate for the hype. Sorry, Berens, you’re an honorary member of the Bucklemming club today.

-

to be fair i’m also still pissed off from the promo from last night where Sam and Dean failed to drop the most obvious pop culture reference of all time so this episode was genuinely on thin ice

-

anyway

-

actors who look Teutonic and have passable German accents must spend a disproportionate amount of time around swastikas… like at the start of his career did this guy look in the mirror and think “oh no I have blonde eyebrows I am going to be so many TV nazis”

he’s probably not going to make it out of the cold open because I’m fairly sure this is the lady who shouldn’t be on the submarine

-

she has a huge hair pin so she is going to stab him with it

-

was there only one song in Nazi occupied France

-

oh look she stabbed him

-

I guess she hops on the submarine to try and escape then?

-

hey promo video  scene. CHOP CHOP WITH THE RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK REFERENCE.

-

I guess some random meta point we hadn’t discussed last night is Sam drinking ALL the coffee… he’s not sleeping again and over-working… he seems a bit happier than Dean last season but he’s still essentially in the same place, and now the episode after he’s been told it’s all on his shoulders for all we know he hasn’t slept since then. of course he doesn’t have a magic mark of cain thing propping him up so we just substitute a caffeine dependence.

If that’s how Lucifer gets him this episode I’m going to laugh

-

except not because that would be really sad

-

omg Dean no do not drink Sam’s coffee that is rude and gross

-

it occurs to me the press release for this episode described Dean as being the one to call “Cas” for help but this is all from Sam so far and Dean’s offering scepticism.

-

my soul is in agony that they didn’t make the reference

-

hi Lucifer. Good to see you’re catching up with what matters. :P

tbh Crowley has cared about as much about ruling Hell for the last however many seasons we’ve endured endless scenes of him being bored while sitting on that same throne while they dragged out his arc, so now he’s finally been toppled this is kind of missing the novelty value and just makes me think that the throne itself has a built in curse of apathy that not even Lucifer can resist

like some variety on how people get bored while ruling Hell would have been nice :P

-

maybe Lucifer could torture his new minions by talking really obviously about stuff relating to some huge pop culture monolith but not actually make any snarky references directly to said pop culture monolith

-

I’d break in hours if that was my Hell :P

-

“who knew the MoL had european chapters” Um… am I going mad or have we always known that or at the very least they literally met a Legacy with Irish connections like 3 episodes ago.

-

Dean drinking beer because no coffee - probably something to say about coping mechanisms etc. >.> Considering Sam is complicit in Dean turning to drink in the morning what does that even mean :P

-

this translation is too perfect you can NOT get perfect sentences out of Google translate

-

*takes a moment to be tangentially alarmed that they mentioned Lucifer’s crypts just on principle even though Lucifer probably has no idea what actually happened in a certain crypt and this isn’t plot relevant*

-

unless he DOES suddenly ask, “Hey didn’t I have the angel tablet stashed somewhere?!”

-

*takes a long break to recover from how embarrassing Lucifer treating Crowley like a pet is*

-

I do really like Misha’s Lucifer voice though. It’s starting to come into its own now :D

-

“more of a team effort than I led certain people to believe” … like CAS?

I hope he can hear this exchange >.> If you can’t do anything else in there, concentrate on giving Lucifer a migraine or something. I’m rooting for you, Cas!

-

*wails at how Lucifer is really getting into the whole “Hello Dean” thing* He knows! HE KNOWS. Fuck you Lucifer. The only reason he’d make such a show of it using the exact phrasing twice with such weight is if he knew that greeting was special to Cas and Dean. He just lets it roll off his tongue like it’s obvious he’s enjoying the corruption of something special.

-

ooh they’re back to talking about the god stuff… Maybe Lucifer will make the pop culture reference that’s missing.

-

which you know if they assume Cas is all pop culture savvy now will be a horrific inversion of 6x20 for them not noticing. I mean it’s not like Cas has actually started dropping pop culture references so it would still be weird if Lucifer did it??

-

I like how Lucifer is like “oh yeah right Cas is broken… just make up some fake stuff about how time travel doesn’t need wings or whatever” I’m pretty sure that’s bull but Sam and Dean are totally unequipped to know it

(We still don’t know if Lucifer can teleport although I would still place a hefty bet he does have wings)

-

Wait is Lucifer talking about going with Dean on the submarine? This seems like a terrible idea. Also we know he doesn’t. :P

On the other hand, Dean cheerfully assuming Cas will be fine to come with him on the submarine is, entire context aside, really nice that he wants to go on adventures with Cas!

(Cut to random creepy Lucifer face when Dean is talking about how he’s not valuable and he’s the expendable one here. I think that’s Lucifer like “lol you have no idea how much more important I am than you think” with a side order of “wow Dean has issues” and “he’s right I’ll just punt him onto the submarine and not risk the hassle of coming myself” and perhaps “right yes my plan to use him as bait and Dean gets it and will probably agree because he feels like shit probably because I already told him he’d be good bait”)

-

WRONG SHOULDER

-

Oh look, Lucifer didn’t come with. *surprise*

-

I’m glad they showed an exterior shot of the submarine sailing above water because honestly I am terrible with dealing with underwater stories because I sensibly fear the crushing dark depths :P

-

HUH did Lucifer actually *fail* to get on the ship?

If he was actually soaked because he was an idiot and didn’t see the warding that is the best thing that’s happened all episode. :P Mental image of Lucifer bouncing off the submarine firmly established. :3

-

I mean I don’t trust him not to have just felt like fucking with Sam some more and not wanting to do with boring submarine part and just had a quick swim to sell the story.

I guess this is how he sheds his coat as well

-

I like the idea of Lucifer bouncing off the submarine though

-

“Cas” you’re getting too snarky.

OOOPS and then you prioritised something over Dean and then corrected yourself out loud.

If that’s what fucking tips Sam off I am done.

-

*Sam looks away troubled and concerned*

“… Cas isn’t mooning over Dean like a lovesick teenager… something’s *WRONG*”

-

“dON’T WORRY” Sam reassures Lucifer deciding to disregard all evidence and assume Cas is working normally and that was a glitch in the Matrix

-

Lucifer is so fucking fed up of Sam’s earnest can-do attitude.

Sam’s worst hell is being trapped with Lucifer on Lucifer’s home turf… Lucifer’s worst hell is being trapped with perky 10 cups of coffee Sam on HIS home turf.

-

I mean Sam is interpreting “save me from this nightmare” for Cas panicking and despairing about Dean probably??

Lucifer just wants to go home and play some stupid app on his ipad some more. Why do Winchesters happen to bad people????

(I think Lucifer was very pleased with Sam’s initiative to start with, finding a valid weapon where Lucifer failed, but now he’s sticking it out it’s turning into Saving People and Feelings Time.

He’s probably dreading Sam taking that moment to give Cas the Big Talk about his feelings for Dean. :P)

-

Here we go, Dean stuck on a submarine. This is what we paid for. :P *much awkwardness around those men*

-

Haha he got his ass kicked within seconds by Delphine.

A+ approved

-

tee hee Dean getting searched by sailors. Now explain your phone.

-

wait can Lucifer actually grab Dean back out of here if he can’t get in? Whoops. Didn’t realise.

-

I would be worried but… Something tells me that Dean survives the episode.

-

I have no idea how inaccurate Dean’s knowledge of presidents is but those are the random shots in the dark I’d have taken with no idea who actually was the president. :P

-

so far this episode has highlighted that they never learned even basic French (which is on Sam too :P), has Dean miss a literary reference, and now he’s forgetting high school history (I’d assume).

(Also we’re 22 minutes in and I’m pretty sure if Dean was going to have a snarky comment about Raider of the Lost Ark it would have been in the promo scene. Grrr.)

-

oh no the submarine is going underwater.

-

Lucifer is looking kind of pale… I hope Cas is okay. :/ Don’t you dare start burning him up.

-

Haha so suddenly when they seriously need to get past angel warding there’s a spell.

Of course.

-

Come on Lucifer, how do you spin this one? :P

-

Okay, just sneakily doing the spell anyway.

-

OH THANK GOD FINALLY it’s ACTUALLY the ark of the covenant Dean’s smile is lighting up my soul

-

Didn’t melt their faces though.

-

Dean probably is kind of disappointed this is all that’s left.

-

Oh good, Dean at least knows the major dates of when the war ended. :P

-

This is a really depressing episode for the random other people on the boat :( I like that we’re exploring this but it’s still sad.

(Also I’m glad Dean is emotionally bonding with random sailors because I’d expect nothing less of him :P)

-

Oooh she hasn’t revealed that she has the last bit of warding on her. That’s going to be tense, probably.

-

Oh holy crap “kill me” nooo

I mean she’s meant to die here anyway

but stiiiill

Is this going to turn out to be a different sort of sympathetic Amara parallel.

She just said the mark (where Amara’s is) is “bound to her heart” and lives and dies with her. She just went 100% Amara parallel, especially with asking Dean to kill her

I mean we needed one sympathetic Amara parallel to balance the banshee and quareen and in this case it’s positive for Dean’s end of the Amara speculation because Delphine has to die to save Dean.

-

Aw shit Lucifer just went ahead to do the spell. Sam’s maybe thinking Cas has just flipped and is going to kill himself to get Dean back? Still in character???

-

(You know… If Lucifer is outed here and legs it when they’re done, he’s not going to bother with the coat, which means Cas’s trenchcoat is just going to be LEFT in the bunker. You know one of the most painful things was that bit in Doctor Who where the Doctor comes back into the TARDIS and sees Rose’s jacket still hanging over the railing in there? AAAAAAH DO NOT WANT)

-

Whoops, Lucifer broke character because Sam got too annoying for him

-

(I mean he was being perfectly fine and earnest but I think the fact Cas vindictively gave Lucifer a migraine at the start of the episode has been trying his patience ever since.)

-

I suppose this darkly parallels 9x11 with Sam and Cas having a lesson on the power of friendship and self-sacrifice. Now Lucifer emulates Cas’s self-destructiveness to start with, as in it’s not out of character that Cas would probably fling himself at such a spell even knowing it would kill him if it would save Dean (see also: why Lucifer is in the Bunker in the first place) and that making Sam think Cas is about to fling himself into certain death pushes all of Sam’s buttons to try and save Dean and Cas, and, actually, invokes 10x19 (also by Berens) where Dean saved Sam from giving too much of himself away by joining in with the horrible blood spell to open the Werther box, teaching Sam a lesson about sharing the load etc…

but Lucifer is like “wtf Sam is the most annoying person on the planet oh my GOD I hate him so much will you STOP TRYING TO SAVE DEAN AND KILL YOURSELF I’LL JUST DO IT FOR YOU IF YOU WANT IT SO BADLY”

-

Misha’s face is honestly amazing.

-

I do think “I trust you” was the worst way to break character though. Like just the horrific dramatic irony

-

UGH Lucifer acting as Cas mid-sentence how does Sam not just puke on him

-

(I haven’t been sick yet!)

-

Oh great so Lucifer touches Sam’s soul just for kicks for the least subtle rape metaphor ever on this show. *braces self for dashboard*

-

CAAAS??? *grabs at him for the 0.000003 seconds he was on screen*

-

Don’t hurt Cas’s friends, you dick.

*Lucifer’s migraine intensifies*

(GOOD TO KNOW CAS CAN FIGHT BACK WHEN LUCIFER IS AN ASSHOLE)

-

… Even if the ship is saved to get Dean out of there Lucifer needs to kill Delphine OH NO

(although interesting for the Amara parallel? Especially as it’s only a necessity for Lucifer not his end goal)

-

meanwhile Dean is like !!?!? at the mention of the Thule. Nice to know he’ll be thinking of Aaron for a moment somewhere here.

-

I mean bigger problems at the end of the day

-

10 minutes left I’m scared

-

CAS

“I wanted to be of service” Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

-

DELPHINE AAAAH

So if she was the Amara parallel she didn’t get killed but did absorb a ton of God power to save them all at the end of the day which would kill her. (I suppose they’ll say if time changed or not??)

(The universe hates them saving ships to get weapons)

Anyway one point for the “absorb each other” theory.

-

“THAT’S NOT CAS”

-

Oh my god the whole episode was pointless :P

-

Go Sam yay! :3

-

Now I will wallow in Dean’s expression for the rest of my life. Ow.

Why are they by the water???

-

because PAIN

Emotions can only be expressed by a large body of water 

-

AAAAAHHHHHHH

Wait that wasn’t the voice over from the keep grinding thing but it was the same sentiment. Do they repeat it??

I’m more upset that Sam said that Cas chose to be possessed and Dean was instantly like “NO NOT POSSIBLE”

-

This is so aggressively sad. Like, to distract himself from the Cas thing that has his eyes burning red with tears he asks about the ship that went down and is sad for Delphine too. He has NOT had a good day. :(

-

And I’d bet no one bought coffee either.


	8. 11x15

aka Lizzy needs to do something with her hands and brain or else completely drift away into another universe instead of watching

…

It occurs to me in this hideously long wait for the episode to download, that I/we know/knew literally nothing about this episode aside from it’s premise of “lol wrestlers” and I can’t even tell you with 100% faith that it’s a MotW and not, like, one of those very rare soul-searchy episodes like 10x09 (and only 10x09??) that doesn’t even have a “real” monster, except the monsters you bring with you. Like, is this just an extended spiritual quest sparked by the death of an old icon and meeting a hot young wrestler for Dean to come to terms with his bisexuality? All the PR was focussed on Dean fangirling, to varying degrees of subtlety so it seems if they’re even a smidgen aware of how the fandom talks, that was cunning marketing :P

(Also I didn’t have the energy to watch the promo last night but everyone was comparing it directly to Dean x Doctor Sexy, even saying it was WORSE. On the other  hand this is making me think of… wasn’t it Leviathan!Dean who said he didn’t have friendships, he had applications for sainthood? Considering that was a subtle jab about Dean’s season 7 headspace on Cas, and we’re in another season borrowing from season 7 and Cas is lost to Dean in a way yet again, through his own decisions, and the last episode ended on Dean saying it wasn’t possible for Cas to not want to come back/ambiguously perhaps denying he even chose it, having an episode following on directly from that with Dean fangirling and literally having someone who is an idol to him might be a way to explore that. Just from promo stuff people were comparing the wrestler to Cas. So we’ll see how that parallel works on this front. I almost hope Dean is disillusioned with the guy by the end to drag him down to a place to repair from in terms of Cas?)

oh hey here’s the episode okay attempting to engage attention span

-

All the previously catch up stuff is Casifer and Crowley to start with. Awarding this episode bonus points if either one has contact with the Winchesters.

-

Lol using a clip of Cas getting thrown around to suggest Lucifer isn’t strong enough to fight her. *Cas disappears from the story entirely*

-

They’re recapping the whole Hand of God thing… Would it really be important this episode? They also didn’t recap anything about Dean’s mental state

-

starting the actual episode now with absolutely no idea how anything relates to anything

-

hey it’s Cas’s caged halo lights in the locker room first visible over Dean’s crush wrestler on his first appearance on screen and hovering behind his head and only his head

I think this other bloke just called him an old timer

probably means Dean’s crush is also a Dean parallel

-

one day I’m probably going to have a seizure because of the season 11 title card despite so far no history with epilepsy because omg my poor headache addled brain vs all that flashing

-

Mmm Dean researching demonology to save Cas and drinking coffee this is my jam

I assume he’s researching demonology to save Cas because I’m not sure what else he would be doing here

I really ought to un-pause the episode I’ve been on this screen half an hour

-

is Sam okay? He has coffee why does he need painkillers did they go out and get plastered to commiserate on losing Cas, or is this a side effect of Lucifer soul-fisting him? Is Sam benched for this episode so Dean gets to have all the wrestler drama with him as the plausible centre of attention? Is Sam in lingering pain a subtle no homo about Dean x his crush? Like of course Dean is doing all the leg work did you see how many painkillers Sam needed?

Although Dean had them first so I’m going with “they got plastered because life sucks”

-

considering Dean seemed to yoink the Giant Bottle of Painkillers from his bag, I am laughing at his priorities when packing a bag

flannel, flannel, jeans, toothbrush bag, green bandana for some reason, giant bottle of painkillers

-

ooooh it’s a John Winchester thing OKAY so this makes more sense

the wrestler who died was John’s fave, the “Hangman” which is probably all sorts of symbolic and stuff

the fact that Sam and Dean drop everything to go to his funeral makes sense - I’m officially saying this episode passed its scrutiny checks 3:20 in, because A: researching for Cas, B: Sam and Dean need to go do this for catharsis about John and literally any episode with something about moving on from John gets a pass. I gave Halt and Catch Fire a pass for burning the truck because that was a similar sort of symbolic thing, only here they’re openly mentioning John and so going to a funeral of someone connected to him (even just by the fact John watched the guy on TV) 

-

*has a momentary flare up of “I take that last thing back” when Dean starts talking about how they have jack on hands of god or Amara but then dies when he left Cas out to make a separate, SADDER comment about how they have even less of nothing on how to save him*

Also Sam seems to be sleeping/recovering if this is a week later so Dean’s taken over as chief researcher

-

Aaand this officially is the worst thing ever because Sam says “wants to be saved” so we’re like 90% of the way there to the “you don’t think you deserve to be saved” parallel between Cas and Dean, and while I’m busy leaping off a cliff, Dean gets wet-eyed again, cites going loopy about trying to save Cas as his cabin fever reason to need to leave the Bunker for a bit, and displays unwavering faith in Cas

hahahahah it was nice knowing you all

-

anyway meanwhile Lucifer seems to be running Hell just to spite Crowley and has promoted the cool WoC demon from last episode to his side. She seems a shade Meg-like with her “of course my Lord” and not looking scared of him so much as admiring. This is where I immediately take back when I said it would have been a good arc for Meg to die in 11x10 - if I can endlessly resurrect her for interesting plotlines that would have suited her, imagine if she was the demon in that meatsuit :P

-

she is my new favourite character just for that smug sidle into shot to watch Lucifer being mean to Crowley

-

except for also that look of disgust and contempt that Crowley actually did lick the floor

-

Eeeey it’s the funeral scene from the promo I didn’t watch but everyone has assured me it’s Dean’s gayest moment to date

-

Omg Dean is fangirling so hard about how great these men are/were like they’re legends, but Sam sees right past that and just asks “what happened to them all they’re all broken” but Dean isn’t even listening because heart eyes for his crush.

My heart has shattered  _why was no one talking about this line_?

Unless the promo was cut for maximum gayness by skipping Sam’s moment, brb

-

(I paused to go look up the promo with the video on dean’s crush’s butt as he stands up which has made me realise this is a Dean POV shot and we’re watching the guy’s butt before Dean positively ID’s him DEAR LORD)

-

hm nope apparently that line was in the promo but my brief survey of my dash last night everyone was flipping out about Dean’s crush to worry about Sam dropping a devastating symbolic line

-

Considering the John Winchester link to this episode I’m not entirely sure how I feel about Dean calling his crush “sir” >.>

-

this guy is so tall though

-

Dean’s doing that handshake thing where you put one finger on the other person’s wrist and I can not remember specifically what that means but it’s presumably weird and intimate 

(my dash just had a gifset from the promo followed by Dean being all sparkly eyed at Suzy in 9x08 and now I am cry-laughing and also it is 4:49, I keep getting distracted, and I am not going to finish watching this before my friend comes over to watch it which means I will probably have to post this as is, and then watch ¾ of the episode in that uncomfortable hell of not being able to pause 100 times to work out what’s going on or talk myself through the episode I LOVE MY COMPREHENSION SKILLS.)

-

Dean casually dropping tragic childhood memories to demonstrate how - WAIT A SEC AFTER THIS WE CUT TO SAM SEEING RECOGNISING AND BEING EXCITED TO MEET AN ATTRACTIVE WOMAN WHAT THE FUCK 

Aw come on show this is just rude don’t DO this to us :P

-

I had to take yet another break and eat a Tracker bar after Sam called her his old crush because this fucking direct parallel between Dean and Sam’s objects of childhood desire I am too weak for this I’m not exaggerating about my health issues I feel like I only mastered the urge to pass out/throw up halfway through typing this much

oh god please tell me I’ve got through the worst of it it’s 5pm and my friend is officially off work and winging her way to my house

-

I’m gonna die

-

ah yes some nice light wrestling to watch in the background this will be ea -

OH FOR FUCK’S SAKE RIA WINKED AND WAVED AT SAM AND DEAN KNEW EXACTKY WHAT THAT IS ABOUT AND THE PROMO INFORMS ME THAT DEAN’S CRUSH IS GONNA WINK AT HIM FRO THE EAXCT SAME SPOT IN A MINUTE

-

this episode is wavering wildly between this sort of nonsense and Sam dropping crushing lines about their lifestyle and getting old and shit “you realise you literally just described our jobs” re going town from town putting their ass on the line for no money. Or Sam saying it should have been grander and Dean like “well if you drink enough it will be like old times” like wtf even is the tone of this episode meant to be

-

Oh no a dad and son sat behind them 

I was about to ask if both those beers were for him or one was for the kid and then he said something incomprehensible and Sam and Dean seemed to get sad but I’m 3 replays through and nonethewiser but it seems to be alcoholism + father figure = sad winchesters with maybe a side order of them drinking aged 10 :P

-

okay the wrestler who just showed up is called “hellraiser” or something and he’s about to fight Dean’s crush, who is currently wearing white

also is that his manager? I jsut had the most uncomfortable “is that Nicholas Cage what is he doing in a Supernatural episode” moment of my life.

(Okay so that’s only happened once but it will probably be memorable)

-

He’s probably the bad guy if the skulking other wrestler isn’t

-

this is so so embarrassing

-

Dean please sit down

Oh god

-

I think Sam is making fun of Dean for his crush like Dean made fun of his crush

-

I am only half-watching because this is the second hand embarrassment I was dreading

although Dean’s crush did use Dean’s knee to haul himself back up

-

wrestling is a ridiculous thing why are we watching this why is is this section so long 

-

that was one of the more inglorious deaths on the show >.>

There was some sort of symbol graffittied 3 times on the lamppost which if it’s important, I’m like nearly a full day late to the episode so someone’s worked it out hopefully :P

-

oh god I’m 15 minutes in 

-

Okay Dean is being a dork round 2 of the embarrassment I can’t stand to look at

that clumsy-not-clumsy pratfall OUT of the ring was something else though and I am in awe of Jensen’s physical acting. (I mean I suppose he was meant to be delivering cant-look-at-the-screen dorkiness a moment before as well so he succeeded at that :P) 

-

Dean’s having a totally normal conversation with Ria without any crushing on her apparently that was just a Sam thing and he really didn’t crush on her :P

-

Oh hey it’s Crowley

forgot about him :P

-

Hey, apparently this demon is actually a really good actress and she was grossed out watching Crowley lick the floor on his behalf. So she’s probably gonna die for sucking up to Lucifer but freeing Crowley

I literally can’t imagine why any demon would want Crowley back though I mean he had a good run from season 6-8 but he’s been on the slide ever since thanks to various Winchester-related problems >.> Maybe it’s like a fandom split: some demons are still stanning Crowley just because. She is a Crowley fangirl.

-

I can’t remember why Sam was written out of this section but the bar is skeevy and Dean looks quite concerned about the women in this bar :P 

*he makes a beeline for his crush*

 Uuuh who has 2 drinks in front of him and offers one to Dean without thinking about it

is this a hook up

-

Also he remembered Dean’s name

-

My mum came in to ask where my friend was and I paused it on Dean giving his crush the gayest look I’ve ever seen oh my god

(I have no idea where my friend is it’s 5:30)

-

wtf Dean’s crush is taking his clothes off

-

oh to show off his scars

-

Chicks dig scars

-

Okay they’re comparing and bonding. 

I’m taking 10 points for correctly deducing that “keep on grinding” came from this guy and I hear my friend downstairs so this is apparently where the episode ends: with Dean’s crush putting the moves on him at a bar and Dean getting some life advice. Weird unsolved murder aside, it was a short but good episode. :P  

 

-

 

OKAY I’M BACK now I know the ending but I need a second pass through the episode anyway to figure it out and get down some thoughts so here’s part 2!

-

So the wrestler gives Dean his ‘keep on grinding’ advice which I thought before the episode might come from him, but is pretty neat because we were discussing (especially a very clever anon) that this episode is a pick me up episode and even though when Sam and Dean came in at the end they seemed shattered and probably a wee bit “how does everything turn into monsters when we so much as step out to get groceries?” this positive message is planted in the midway point where things are going well with Dean. In a way I guess this is a mental bubble put around him at this point

-

The wrestler mentions his ex-wives in an attempt to no-homo the scene but tbh that horse left the stable so long ago it’s like leaving a drawing of a cartoon horse pinned on the wall

-

there also appears to be nascar playing in the background

-

Sam is *driving* 

Admittedly not with Dean in the car but tbh we pretty much don’t even see him do that? :P I thought it was significant to actually see him behind the wheel anyway.

-

because Jared mumbles worse than Jensen when he really sets his mind to it (while Jensen just randomly garbles the odd word) I basically had no idea what this conversation was when I first watched it but it appears the symbol - which I also missed the existence of on both watches but I guess was what happened to the alcoholic father unsubtle John Winchester parallel - sucks souls.

While this turns out to be the first demon MotW in a billion years I think it’s worth mentioning that it’s probably an Amara parallel somehow (ancient Sumerian is like “before times” as I think tht’s one of the earliest civilizations recorded history goes back to?), and at the very least, since this episode didn’t remind us loudly that demons are obsessed with soul numbers like a corporation caring about shares, that we have an alternate way of doing that and reminding us of the business of souls and how the universe seems to run on them. (I seem to recall Dabb was responsible for the Sam marries Becky episode which also had a demon gaming the system. It appears Dabb spends a lot of time thinking about this sort of thing or else the new writer is crony-ing up to him :P)

Anyway this season must already be only behind season 6 for most number of times “soul” has been said

… I still can’t work out how this could be an Amara parallel but I’m paranoid of them. I suppose it’s a symbol that kills you and rips your soul out so that’s subtle.

-

anyway Dean instantly thinks demons would be going around stealing souls which yes is their MO but they have their own system to do it so it seems like something doing it another way you’d think it WASN’T a demon since deons can already do it??

-

At this point with Dean doing just the one drink with holy water, my friend was like “oh no he’s gonna have to buy the whole bar drinks” and I was like “oh no” so she was actually doing better than me for predictions this time around

-

Anyway Reek - I mean Crowley - continues his escape and now I am sad about this demon “helping” him because boo killing off the cool characters. This whole subplot had to fizzle out for the sake of not fucking with the mytharc and resolving the season 15 episodes in but I’m sad a demon with personality and awesome hair had to die for it >.> Dabb has somehow ended up writing the deaths of at least 2 named WoC I can think of, and one queer lady just this season (RIP Jenna and Ambriel and this demon who was named but I can’t remember it yet >.>). I don’t think he’s doing it deliberately but the whole equal opportunity deaths thing is still probably not playing well in the longer scheme of the show in general being renownedly terrible for this sort of thing. The solution is not *just* killing off more but giving them distinct personalities first. On the other hand, he has Billie as a character who is not yet dead, so he’s *trying* maybe? :P

And yet I am still happy that they were all characters with personalities? I don’t feel wanky about this but it’s definitely a wank adjacent thing >.>

-

Plus 2 boring white guy demons get killed to aid Crowley’s escape

-

And you know Lucifer sent them as bait rather than the other demon who sacrificed herself

-

Anyway here’s the scene where Sam randomly had an El Sol sign behind him from 2 different angles. Argh. 

In hindsight… I can not recall why they’d have been haunting Sam because he did not do anything this episode.

Maybe it was in general for them making an incorrect deduction. And missing the obvious that the fight had been in part about the wrestler’s “dealer” and that was something they could have saved time to investigate??

-

“Well that’s not good” “you think?” Listen Dean is very hung over you have to give him a pass :P

-

I find it interesting that Dean is hung over like that because of doing it for a case and he wouldn’t have drunk so much as his first plan - like he didn’t leap into the idea of matching the entire wrestling group for drinks

I feel like it’s part of the pattern since at least Love Hurts where he really seemed not happy with the casual hook ups and drinking - there he was doing it to act the part of himself, and here he parties all night for work - both times sort of facade-y putting on an act, going through the motions partying.

He’s so done

-

Anyway then Crowley stands around with the Black Rose neon sign of betrayal as a halo (other betrayals: started with Ava, indirectly referenced with her exact blue beetle car showing up again in Just My Imagination, and used as a similar halo behind soulless!Sam in the alley where Dean got turned into a vampire.)

-

ALSO

wondering about the sigil next to her because it’s got a similar look to a lot of sigils we see on the show 

it definitely looks more occult than random graffiti

-

In hindsight I have a lot of emotions about this guy who gets killed and his soul harvested.

Like “i know I’ve been a dick” trying to apologise upfront while the wrestler drinks beer and watches after roughing him up. This guy ended up refusing to sell out and having a sudden moment of clarity about his place in the universe with the sort of logic we rarely see on people discovering about demons. The idea of duality, Heaven and Hell, has been a given since season 4 but season 1-3 it was a mystery and Dean gave Sam a lot of flack for that same logic in Faith and Houses of the Holy… Anyway it might be a given for the viewers and Winchesters, but pulling on this logic that the universe must be inherently dualistic is a leap of faith for this guy and fits with the season’s theme of duality just for the rare insight from a muggle

-

Also this guy reminded me of Dean too just because bloody, tied to a chair and hair full of product (somehow it seemed to be the whole Mark of Cain arc in one go with this guy echoing the blood smears from 9x23 and chair tied moment of 10x03, with this red-eyed demon blatantly Crowley. But this guy reject it all on moral principles and dies for it after being symbolically crippled. Which is really depressing, but he tried to die good, just like Dean did in 9x23, and as far as I can tell they used the spell on him so his soul was harvested so he would become a demon anyway. WHOOPS.)

-

There is probably another layer to him as well since he already covered Sam and Dean and the whole dying for faith and getting screwed over by it is a sacrifice of sorts and Cas is the main subject for those sort of mirrors

but an anon pointed out that you can see this guy’s dick when the chair is knocked over and I was willing it not to be true all through this sequence and now I am distracted and uncomfortable :P

-

Ah yes the Crowley’s lock up section

I am so amused about him having The Winchester Gospels in here, but then it turned out to actually be important because Lucifer accuses him of being a fangirl to Dean and that ties together Sam and Dean’s fangirling over their respective childhood crushes and ties it into the Drowley arc… Like, I dunno, Dean’s crush on the wrestler is as Sam’s crush on Ria as is Crowley’s crush on Dean, which also has its own “I can’t believe it’s not canon!” levels of ridic subtext… 

(Also in a way it’s commenting that all fans romantically or sexually crush on the object of their attraction, and I already mentioned Dabb (I am p sure it was him??) and the wedding episode, so that’s dragging up that old thing for the sake of the parallels here… I don’t even know.)

-

anyway then everyone makes dick jokes about the Rod of Aaron because season 7 is a time sorely missed by the cast and crew when you could make 7 Dick jokes an episode

-

I yelled at the screen when Lucifer picked up a book from the Winchester Gospels. 

Is he  _aware_? 

(I yelled incoherently but it was something meant along those lines, and like, how those books can be a great source of power and also if he looked up the extra texts on the internet he could read his own downfall and understand how he lost in season 5… Maybe understand Cas better etc) 

Anyway better he remains disinterested >.>

-

The cool demon is called Simmons but booo she doesn’t survive >.>

-

OOOH I just finally after 5 attempts understood his dialogue

these scenes are shifting back and forth and Lucifer has just accused Crowley of being Dean’s #1 fan (present company of his vessel excluded) as an insult, and then we cut to NC!demon and he is going on about Sam and Dean being underwhelming to meet, and says he expected an LA 10 but got a Kansas 5, which is presumably the whole “how do you rate them out of 10″ thing combined with douchebags suggesting some areas are geographically hotter. Kansas is clearly low on the scale of hotness to start with and he’s accusing them on being only middling for THAT 

Which compares again to Love Hurts where Dean complains about how he’d only been in Kansas when he got laid before the episode, but wanted to try again somewhere else where he clearly assumed the people would be hotter, except he struck out or gave up out of exhaustion

(also, you know, in-world they literally are from Kansas so RUDE)

-

Anyway the episode over all has a theme of fangirling and I stand by what I said before I watched it about Dean vs idols - ironically he doesn’t know he’s being idolised in turn by Crowley (and subtextually, because of his presence in the love triangle last season even just going on the most immediate closest evidence, Cas) while Lucifer thinks that’s a “Kansas 5″ of an aspirational idol, continuing to underestimate Dean (I said a while back that this would be his downfall again or else it would somehow be important he does, and I can’t remember what made me think that or if I was just speculating based off of Swan Song only, but Lucifer has never had time for Dean, and he’s somehow seeing but failing to see Dean’s influence even while possessing Cas and dissing Crowley. just like how he picked up a copy of the Winchester Gospels and then discarded it without even cracking open the cover.

(Crowley seems to conceal the books as he picks them up and moves them, even just from Simmons’ eyes, as if not wanting her to know that he has them or that they’re part of the most important items he owns. Of course he’s used them as weapons as effectively as he could have used any other actual relic in there, but is he concealing weakness aka a pathetic fangirl streak that parallels him to Becky, or an advantage? I still think Lucifer may fuck up somewhere and if Rob Benedict is coming back as Chuck OR God I feel like that moment was significant enough I’m still harping on it. Metatron both used the books and threw them in the fire as trash and he was never a good at stories as he liked to think and got taken down by that very flaw)

-

ALSO there’s something pillar-y about the things Sam and Dean were thrown up against and the wrestler comes at Dean while he’s pressed against the pillar is a direct parallel to 11x14 and Dean’s last encounter with Cas

-

I still think Lucifer falling on the floor looks like Cas. Maybe it’s just because Cas has been on his back so many times that seeing Misha on his back just makes me go “Cas”

-

Got weird Kevin vs Crowley feelings seeing Crowley with the same glowing eyes as when Kevin first powered up off the tablet. Continuity in visual effects!

I am nostalgic for Kevin vs Crowley because Kevin got way more victories than defeats and I loved it when he won :P

-

somewhere in my heart it is always season 8

-

the wrestler calls dean “kid” to go with Dean calling him “sir” and like this is still fucking me up because Dean obviously crushes on him and this is 100% prime bi Dean footage but the John stuff is layered into it and obviously this is not about shipping because ew but I suppose it’s a trope that people accidentally date people who remind them of their parents a lot, and something I think with psychological background? I don’t know much about it but anyway there are a lot of extremely messed up layers inside Dean Winchester and while none of them might be directly this weird, they make a broader pattern where we’ve always said he seems most often attracted to authority figures, and even based on 4x03, there’s an argument of how Cas and John were/are similar in appearance, and broadly from that season this same thing, although of course Cas quickly moves beyond being an authority figure and survives this part of the obstacle course of being an object of affection to Dean :P

-

Dean sitting tied in the chair has an obvious halo from the light - not caged, open bulb

to go with his halos from last week

-

Of course this wrestler’s demon deal is pointless and Dean relates directly to him but in the grand scheme of thing Dean thought John’s deal was rubbish and his own was worth it.

-

I am pretty amused at the idea of an arms race of Lucifer and Crowley burning through every known Hand of God and never actually reaching Amara because they’re so busy fucking with each other

-

I’m still laughing at “hey yourself, handsome” from the first time, with Dean’s thing thrown back at him where the monster is the one implying what DEAN said was a come on instead of the other way around

but instead of defensive heterosexuality, this demon flirts back

-

Still confused about Dean offering his gun because I’m pretty sure it was to imply the wrestler kill himself and spare himself the trouble. PRETTY SURE it’s been canon forever and a day that dying before your deal just speeds up the process, but I guess it was for a quick death and not being torn to shreds - which Dean knows TOO WELL. Still, while I know that, I feel it’s almost vague enough because they don’t want to directly say “here, go top yourself” that it implies either he fight, or that killing himself would skip hell

I don’t know if anyone would get that impression but then I was only half sure I’d got it right the first time I watched and not everyone makes a point of studying the episode to make sure they understood everything >.>

- 

some people can apparently watch TV and understand everything that happened without giving themselves a blinding migraine trying to put it all together quickly and intuitively… I remember that skill :P

-

ANYWAY the Keep Grinding talk 

yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeah

Dean does the sad eyes again because of course

I’m so happy he’s so miserable about Cas :P


	9. 11x16

I REGRET MY LIFE CHOICES

(11x16 watching notes)

This is me not making it past the recap without needing to get something to hug

-

that is a seriously scary cold open… Don’t hurt the kid! :( :(

-

“You know the drill - in the mean time we hunt.”

Oh my god Dean looks awful. The fact Sam needs to tell him that suggests he spent the rest of the hiatus moping about Cas as much as we did :P

-

Also describes it as “eyes on the prize” pfft

Cas is a trophy wife pass it on

-

i already spent the cold open musing on how this felt like the first time the normal family in the cold open had been non-white as far as I could ever remember and now it turns out the mom is waiting for her wife to come back 

Robbiiieeee *chases after him to give him a hug*

-

The thing about the monster just leaving a red handprint is SO SINISTER though. Especially when they didn’t name names and just said about “Cas” rather than, you know, “Lucifer” which creates this dissonance where Cas himself seems to be the problem, in the way it’s worded. Which then makes it more about a dark and twisted version of Cas than understanding the problem as an entirely different entity?

11x14 utterly sold me on the wrong shoulder thing being intentional, it started in 11x11 where the banshee also had a red handprint on her shoulder, and so I’m assuming Robbie is up to something with this imagery

(What’s that sound? Actual crafted Destiel subtext rolling through like 3 different episodes? *stares at it open-mouthed*) 

-

I bet that woman has been watering the shrubs on that side of her property ever since the ambulances showed up for the poor little girl.

She seems the type

-

“A HANDFUL OF YEARS AGO”

fuck you Robbie I want to hang you up to dry for continuity errors and you’re not letting me >.>

-

It belatedly occurs to me that Bobby’s shitty car here - which I’d already seen in promo stuff - should have tipped me off that was Bobby’s shitty car in 7x11

-

Okay so I assume this is in season 4? The apocalypse is a loomin’ but Bobby is still somewhat cheerful and more importantly, upright, and I don’t think he’d have found time to do this hunt between 5x21 and 5x22

-

Maybe this is what caused Bobby to take a tropical vacation around about 4x09 because that was hilarious but after 20 seconds with Rufus I can see him needing one

-

“were you ever nice?”

“1985. Worst year of my life”

Have I mentioned that Rufus unexpectedly turned out to be my actual favourite side character on the entire show over the course of my rewatch?

-

Maybe it’s just because I’ve been in season 7 for the last 2 weeks, but that design on the house’s door window looks suspiciously like the big bad of said season

-

Of course that was the transition to go back to Sam and Dean

-

Kinda curious about the wallpaper - yellow wallpaper type deal? Monster wallpaper? There’s something suspicious under it

It really is hideous wallpaper

-

The fact is this house is aggressively haunted means it actually can’t be ghosts because this is way too convincing when everyone says the exact same thing :P

-

If this is season 4 then that significant look between Bobby & Rufus about the handprint is “I know a guy with one of those” :P

-

“I got the same room. For luck.”

Sam is a dork

but 

I’m assuming Bobby and Rufus fuck up big time so this isn’t just a humorous way to do the transitions, but kind of layering them over each other in a bonus symbolic way for that will presumably end up being an episode about atoning for the sins of the father - this seems like a really humorous episode so far (all the distress about the poor kid(s) aside) and nothing like the old John Winchester episodes on similar themes, but there’s a few things here which make me think it. 10x06 was deeply Bobby-critical, so the show should be at least inviting us to not think of him as a saint just because he’s dead. There’s the whole “you can’t escape your past” theme, but Bobby & Rufus are both dead so that passes onto their “next of kin” as hunters (the ones who have Bobby’s old journals in the trunk of their car) and most importantly, Rufus is invoking his “no work on the sabbath” rule to make Bobby do everything, and so even if he’s here the actions are falling on Bobby, and, this is amazingly clever if the story actually holds to this, making any fuck up specifically on Bobby and therefore his adoptive sons (oh god why did I watch 7x10 2 days ago) pick up the pieces of something HE did, and like with 7x10, Rufus is present so that Bobby isn’t alone - he is literally a narrative ghost or figment in the same way he was in that episode where Bobby was literally conjuring him out of his memory as a comforting face to talk to. Here Rufus is obviously a bit more real and for example is the reason Bobby is even here, but thematically I’m wondering if he will be intentionally taking a backseat for this?

-

We transition back to the Winchesters with Dean drinking the Beer of Death that Bobby opened in the past (Schultz brand always shows up when someone dies although in this case both sides past and present are discussing who died in the house so it might be fairly obvious why this beer)

I was juuust watching 7x12 yesterday before a ton of distracting stuff happened so I didn’t make it with publishing any notes, but the first ghost!Bobby - Dean interaction is that he drinks all of Dean’s El Sol (the beer of lol what is true anyway) when he puts it down for a second, and I was talking there about how they are linked through alcohol all season - with the flask and everything - but that seems particularly pertinent to mention, Robbie episode to Robbie episode.

Also the biggest theme of having to move on past Bobby in a dark way was his link to Dean’s alcoholism, and it’s reasonable to see that Dean does that between season 7 & 8, only to sink back in for these last few seasons. I doubt this is enough of anything in the long run to help him like burning Bobby’s flask to let the vengeful spirit of his alcoholism go did, but hey, this link seems to put it back on the table in almost the exact same way it was done in season 7

-

Sam and Dean argue if it will be just that easy. Dean wants it to be so that they can hurry up and just save Cas already (Robbie please stop making Dean say “Cas” I am in PAIN)

Sam seems a little more uncertain about what it might be because he’s spotted that the ghost haunting is TOO textbook and OTT ghost-y.

Dean heads out the door helpfully guiding us to see who is the Sam and who is the Dean of Bobby and Rufus: Bobby always is a Dean mirror but tada he walks out the door the same time as Dean like “why do you always have to make everything so frigging complicated” just in case it wasn’t clear without an anvil which one was which :P

-

Rufus knows what it is but Bobby didn’t write it down, just that he was “hunting a ghost with a jackass” - we don’t know when he wrote that but any time after this it has all the shades of wilful denial we sometimes see in Dean’s character… It’s probably quite likely to be exactly what Rufus says it is for the sake of Bobby messing it up and this being complicated enough without any message to the hunters of the future to tip them off

Also: they hunted one in Alaska AND it’s a Japanese monster which is slightly confusing but okay I mean I guess it makes about as much sense as one would be in Michigan too :P Bobby speaks Japanese of course, so it seems an obvious choice to go off his skill set and introduce new different … I’m guessing the cold open family are ethnically Japanese for the fact that there’s going to be something to read later? :P

-

Anyway Bobby cites apocalypse anxiety while Dean’s is much more personal whether it’s the apocalypse anxiety caused by Amara or how he’s busy forgetting the whole Lucifer is free and walking the earth thing to fuss about Cas :P

-

I will never get tired of Bobby lazily digging graves with heavy machinery

Ah, Rufus start participating finally, although at this point I guess it was more about emotional availability too - showing the give and take between them as friends that once Rufus actually helps, Bobby opens up, even though Rufus has been asking the whole time

-

“I’m worried about my boys, Rufus”

Nope nope nope, good bye 

-

I am extremely concerned this advice for season 4 Bobby about not being able to save everyone is going to come back around when Rufus mentions there’s always sacrifice

I mean they are the old guard with their wrong ideas who *clearly* fucked up this hunt or else Sam and Dean wouldn’t be here, so there might be something in here about subverting these old mindsets and doing things a different way

it’s pretty stark though because Bobby and Dean are paralleled in the present too with Dean worrying about Cas and wanting to get back to it to save him, just as Bobby is antsy to stop the apocalypse to save Sam and Dean if he can… We know Bobby DID lose one out of two initially and then whatever you would call his POV on where we pick up again in season 6.

(Also: Cas has ALREADY made his stupid sacrifice paralleled pretty bloody obviously with the OTHER time a member of TFW let Lucifer take the wheel… Which is the loss Bobby was fearing for however long until that happened, so the most direct parallels you can make are already blurring the outcome/meaning)

-

Nooo not the mom!

-

Omg THAT was their solution? “Don’t touch the wallpaper” - dunno if Bobby and Rufus solved it in any other way yet (they must have done something to wake the past victims) but as a temporary fix that is TERRIBLE. Like, the flimsiness of that advice as protection even for the current owners, never mind what happens when they leave and someone else moves into the house and decides it’s REALLY fuckin’ ugly wallpaper

there’s clearly deeper symbolism about this “fix” but I think I’ll wait until I know more about the monster to probe it :P

-

Sam do NOT 

… he touched it

-

Bobby and Rufus read a stack of books, one of which has the obvious title “FALLEN ANGELS”

oh dear

-

Hm it was Robbie who had those fallen angels in 10x20

-

Research montage!

-

Pfft Bobby says it’s a Soul Eater

Robbie says “I’m not done poking at this idea yet”

-

Dean has a new red and blue shirt!

Sam has a new shirt too

huh

it’s season 11 it’s about time they had new clothes

-

I seriously regret not mentioning sooner that while I was waiting for it to download I was reading this:

[http://www.sheilaomalley.com/?p=114356](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.sheilaomalley.com%2F%3Fp%3D114356&t=MjIyM2ZmY2JiYWFlYzkzMWMyY2U3ZjM2YjdhYWMxNDZiNjllMDlhNyxPQkE5dWpoZw%3D%3D&b=t%3AEoTmUHpiEEiE91JGAXVv3Q&p=https%3A%2F%2Felizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F141601323988%2Fi-regret-my-life-choices-11x16-watching&m=1)

And had just got to the part about the lanterns on the motel divider in 2x20

and so when we first saw this motel and it had lantern-y like lights and a similar colour scheme to 2x20′s motel I was like “Hey it looks like the djinn episode’s motel room!” and I didn’t write it down because I thought it wouldn’t be important

-

I mean you don’t know what order I’m writing these notes in I could have gone back and pretended to be so clever as to have correctly identified this as a djinn-grigori-whatever-adjacent episode in the first 10 minutes but I did and then discounted the idea so more fool me

always listen to the motel room

(ALSO Fuckin’ hell I nearly name-dropped Something Wicked while talking about the whole clearing up the mess of the father theme because that was TWISTED with how John put it on Dean and of course the whole kids in a coma in hospital AND that monster fed on souls COME ON LIZZY)

Let’s just pretend I knew exactly what was going on the whole time instead of not until 20 minutes in because technically I solved the case before the opening :P

-

Oooh Bobby and Rufus’s plaid match Sam and Dean’s, with obvious colour associations

-

Omg Sam has the MoL archive on his laptop I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR PROOF OF THAT FOR LIKE 3 SEASONS

-

He’d better have shared a link to the PDF/private server to Eileen

-

Oh for crying out loud one of them is volunteering to go into the terrifying nest thing Aka get their soul eaten Aka if Dean loses Rock Paper Scissors (COME ON HOW IS THIS SEASON EVEN STRUCTURED) then that’s 2 times in a few episodes he goes through the veil after losing the game

I almost can’t watch I have it paused on Sam offering to play, just dreading that the show really is going to go with Teh Empty at the end of the season and it’s going to be decided by really really stupid chance if this theme comes up twice in one short run of episodes 

Fuuuuck Dean lost the game

goodbye Dean’s soul at the end of the season I guess >.>

-

Also I am writing a letter of complaint about the way this season is being told

-

I AM GENUINELY TERRIFIED IN A MOTW EPISODE ON SUPERNATURAL

WHAT IS THIS, SEASON 1??

-

*mutters to self that Bobby and Rufus die in season 6 & 7 and Sam and Dean have a season 12 to do*

-

Hah, and then the parallels with Bobby and Dean split: “Come and get me, you son of a bitch” “stay the hell away from me you son of a bitch” 

I guess this is them confronting fear of death

and that’s the metaphor about not to touch the wall?

-

They still both got got

-

Dean’s presence of mind to will away the illusion of a dead Sam though

-

I’m proud of him

-

Oh my god

the dead Dean that Bobby sees is wearing the Plaid of Mourning from 2x22/7x01

he wore it a few other times before that in season 1 & 2 but it got strongly linked to Sam’s death and then didn’t come back until Cas’s death

-

Oh man I am GLAD I watch these episodes first thing in the morning and not late at night like the rest of those losers who watch it live on TV

-

*squishing the life out of a stuffed toy*

-

FUCKING HELL THIS EPISODE IS SCARY

-

I can’t believe I’m obsessively checking the timestamp on the episode to see when it’s over just so I know we might only have hopefully another minute of this

-

Oh fuck off Robbie don’t pull that “I know you’re in there” nonsense today

-

It’s not working :P

-

the Soul Eater casually spoils that Dean wants to go with the Darkness >.> It’s okay we already knew that from all the rock paper scissors stuff apparently

-

heh this is a great Sam vs Dean (ish) fight - we rarely get to see them really going for each other

*munches popcorn*

I am trying to unstress by laughing about how Sam hit Dean with a chair

ALSO now the Soul Eater said that, they were allowed to resolve the thing

-

Yay everyone is freed!

-

Omg no

Dean is gonna see

NOOOOOOOO

Omg omg omg

*sobs*

Oh nooo this was too soon after 7x10

I’m actually crying god dammit Bobby is my tearjerker character on this show like no one else >.>

-

*desperately focuses on the fact Bobby chose the shit awful wallpaper and therefore wrote his own prophecy*

I mean his house had pretty alarming wallpaper of its own, should we really have trusted BOBBY with the interior design decision to safeguard future generations??

-

Bobby saw season 11 Dean so I hope he focussed on how handsome Dean got over the next 7 years

-

Rufus lies about what did it because it makes no sense, because Sam and Dean freed the victims through time and space by retroactively freeing and saving every victim somehow

Either retroactively no one died and the one Bobby fought before was a separate one so its victims didn’t get included, hence there were deaths, or somehow there was enough of a link between past and present that their non-dead victims all bounced back from this? The fact there were MORE souls in the nest when Dean was in there than Bobby suggests time was linear in there

but maybe the spell mixed them all up for a moment and broke down those walls as the nest was broken???

Either way Sam and Dean saved that lady they talked to halfway through before they ever met her. :P

Time travel fuckery.

I mean Robbie clearly wanted that for dramatic purposes JUST so Dean and Bobby could lock eyes for a moment?

But then by collapsing the timelines for the sake of drama, it inadvertently saved EVERYONE in the house?

Listen, I know I don’t often mention this theory of mine that Dean and his drama is the centre of the universe (she says, mentioning it weekly) but this is so far my most compelling data yet. :P

-

Aw look at the happy alive family with 2 moms

:’)

-

pfft the radio says it’s playing flashbacks

-

Oh okay apparently the nest DID exist out of space and time and I still hadn’t had enough coffee to absorb that because I now remember them talking about it

SO HOW WAS THERE A CHRONOLOGY ON IT FILLING UP??

-

Btw Bobby and Dean haven’t seen each other since 7x23 - Sam (or Cas) have had ALL the interaction so that was the first time Dean and Bobby interacted since Dean burned his flask

I know it seems weird when Bobby has been in every season since, but 8: Sam rescues him from Hell, 9, he appears in Sam’s coma dream, 10, Sam and Cas chat to him and Cas visits him upstairs…

I kinda knew if they met I’d probably cry because it’s been THAT LONG

-

Also Sam didn’t challenge Dean about what the Soul Eater said about him and the Darkness tsk tsk

He just said it was totally normally to see one of them dead on the floor

yeah Sam is totally dying next episode (I’m not pulling that out of nowhere, apparently Billie is in the next episode, which is Dabb-Berens, and the description of the episode literally says Sam gets shot :P)

-

Brb going to go be sad about Bobby some more


	10. 11x18

11x18 watching notes

episode intuited over the sound of builders hard at work next door/apparently intent on knocking in the dividing wall between my room and that house

-

I have been very amused by Amara showing up as a big bad in How To Get Away With Murder, a show that already re-used the 2 main Leviathans from season 7 as slimy lawyers. Seeing her in the catch up just made me momentarily confused about why it didn’t recap her stealing the soul of one of the main characters of THAT show, because that is actually something that probably happened in HTGAWM and definitely feels like the last time *I* saw her in canon :P She’s either had a haircut or wears extensions to be Amara… 

It didn’t recap any creepy Dean x Amara stuff even from another Buckleming episode or how Dean was struggling with not being able to kill her OR how he handed that burden to Sam/then Billie told him that wasn’t going to work, focussing entirely on the Hand of God stuff so I’m assuming there won’t be time for any of the emotional element of this arc to appear and we’ll be rushing all over the place to get all the 3000 plot points Buckleming want to cover done

-

*cut to Saudi Arabia*

These guys better not all die because that’s terrible even for Buckleming

Oh good there’s a dying white guy hopefully that takes all the potential death off all the Arabs

Aw no don’t 

For crying out loud, he could have just teleported away and these dudes weren’t even evil they were like, archaeology volunteers or something

-

Like, we get it, Crowley’s evil, but that was 20 seconds of screen time murdering half a dozen guys for no reason, and you’re not going to get it back later, and I can see this episode is 42 minutes with credits :P

-

I mean unless it all is from Crowley’s POV or something, since he leads the conversation with Dean. *stares suspiciously at this episode*

I’m pretty sure there’s some Casifer POV stuff because we saw heaven in the promo

Maybe it’s just a day in the life of both villains with the Winchesters as pawns between them

-

I’ve ragequit on the 5 minute mark, whoops *prods self to keep watching*

-

I don’t approve of Crowley saying the weapon is to kill Lucifer first, not Amara. That’s not Bucklemming rage, that’s just feeling protective of Cas :P Crowley WOULD have that priority and no care for the meatsuit >.>

-

Okay THIS I can get behind. Random Rowena return with no explanation plus her and Amara hanging out

And Rowena apparently giving her backrubs?

-

Is this the same place Rowena was hanging out trying to establish her megacoven in 11x03? I’d like to see her try and recruit Amara into the megacoven

-

Okay that explanation was so terrible that I think we can have Charlie back just because Charlie felt like coming back :P

(Not that I’d let them write it but hey if we’re allowed to do that sort of thing with Rowena I’m sure Robbie can just snarkily throw in a “nah she was never dead”… Does this mark the first time a female character has been allowed a random stupid resurrection though? Because I know Charlie got ressed in 9x04 and Abaddon came back twice from the brink/great peril to her meatsuit, but Rowena coming back is much more like, well, Crowley in season 6, killed off in episode 10, back for the end of the season… Narratively I can absolutely not begrudge this even if the method is nonsense :P)

She’s not even a deeemon

-

I am confused because I thought for a minute that Amara had, like, light trapped in her left over from the smiting (apparently she’s STILL sick, which is great because if she’s underpowered there’s more of a fair fight and does explain where she’s been for 8 episodes) but then Rowena’s resurrection had the same effect as the “healing” she was doing on Amara

-

ooh the builders have shushed okay let’s try that dialogue again :P

Rowena is trying to be Amara’s angel on her shoulder just like Crowley did, asking leading questions about Amara remaking the world with Rowena at her side, which Amara does not seem pleased about but once again she’s apparently dependant on a MacLeod for protection/aid/knowledge… Honestly with the season now taking this shape I am now seeing Amara as just ending up metaphorical of this family’s fuck ups as their daughter figure… Well, she called him “Uncle Crowley” which is extremely creepy coming from a grown adult Amara but I suppose channels the naive side of her character & reminds us she was a little girl not long ago… And reminds us how Crowley had a hand in shaping her thus far, so this is quite the handing over to Rowena’s influence now

-

She should really tell Amara that she was the one who freed her - and hopefully she has offscreen - because that A: shifts the dynamic off Dean to where it rightfully came from despite their creepy connection and B: it would give Rowena some serious leverage over Amara way beyond just healing her and hiding her off-screen as she’s been doing

*tries to pretend I’m not rooting for Rowena and fails*

-

I really hope Rowena isn’t dead again by the end of the episode, like, leaping in front of Amara Simmons style (that was in the recap >.>)

-

Ah, Winchester snark… Sam & Dean laughing about Crowley’s changes in fortune makes the power dynamic much clearer here: he’s grovelling to them 

Also they’re doing a lot of plot recap because like 11x09 Winchesters talking to Crowley means explaining the plot to each other to make sure they’re all on the same page

-

Crowley seems to have learned between scenes, since he says Cas needs to be exorcised rather than just talking about killing Lucifer

-

I really want to know what that angel is doing with the thingy and the doors because I am getting a real Monsters Inc. vibe from the thingy so this is maybe the strongest allusion yet to the fact Heaven is literally farming souls? I know season 6 wasn’t subtle about using them as power, but they never went into so much detail and from Cas’s POV he was way more concerned with the politics

I’d ask how Lucifer got into Heaven but I guess “he has wings” is enough of an answer and then you just make a vague hand gesture about how it would have been really fucking stupid of him to go to Heaven in season 5 but post-Metatron he’s a little OP for this place :P

-

I swear to god Lucifer has probably got the literal last dozen angels in existence in that room >.>

They seem to come in 3 brands: suit angel, cardigan angel and one unfortunate sod over there trying to be a trenchcoat angel

-

It feels so wrong seeing Naomi’s office again after all this time, but on the other hand, all that history is lurking in those walls? I mean it’s horrible seeing Cas here ONCE AGAIN a helpless passenger, but this room is the site one of his biggest victories for freewill and loving “humanity” so here’s Lucifer wandering around dissing humanity and forcing the angels to work for him

(and the show is courting Misha’s god complex again.. uhoh :P He is having waaay too much fun. I’ve suddenly thought that him playing Cas for photo ops at conventions is probably more time spent being Cas than on the actual show this year and my heart hurts)

-

I can’t believe we’re 16 minutes in and it’s all been talking, adorable Misha furniture chewing aside - we’ve just cut BACK to Sam and Dean STILL arguing with Crowley in the same spot as before. They’re likely going to go to the halfway point of the episode hashing out details 

-

and the builders are back

-

Okay I did just hear Dean lay out all their priorities and then when everyone agreed yank the rug out like “oh but btw getting Cas back is actually the MAIN priority” and Sam and Crowley meet eyes and are just like “……………..” “What.”

New concept: like with season 10 and Dean n Crowley getting drinks every episode, but Sam n Crowley and they just stare into their drinks like “I can not believe those two idiots still aren’t together” “we are SUFFERING”

-

Crowley has literally given up, thrown his hands in the air, and walked off as a result of Dean saying that

-

“Fuck that did you see what he did with giving Cas the first blade instead of me? I’m not even going to argue. You’ve got this one, Moose.”

-

*wails* Dean seeing Cas and his vessel as one and the same 

-

*immediately comes crashing down in confusion as Dean talks about wanting to get slapped around while having sex by…*

*rewinds and waits for quiet*

no, he said that, a girl in a Zorro mask??

-

You know what I am not even mad, for a Bucklemming “no homo” that is hilarious, confirms sub!Dean and implies he has a weird crush on Zorro he has issues channelling healthily

-

I have literally never felt my heart go up like that only to be immediately laughing in confusion. :P 

Let’s just file this under TMI, Dean, and move on

-

Why is Dean even thinking about kinky sex when talking about Cas

-

time and a place, dude

-

Oh my god I was saying (mostly out of scepticism to spare my hopefulness taking a blow) “naaaah they won’t skip straight to hashing out the Gadreel argument so soon after forgiving the should-have-looked-for-me-in-Purgatory argument,” but Sam and Dean are digging their heels right in on their POVs from that argument over Cas’s choice to be possessed by Lucifer, in this case, Sam’s choice to die in 9x01

-

And Sam calls it the “heart choice” and Dean talks about Cas being family in an episode subtly referencing 8x17 via location

-

So that’s all on the table anyway. 

-

Rowena seems excited and terrified of Amara by turn… I think that shudder was mostly for what would happen if she didn’t manage to harness this raw force of destruction… Good to know she’s terrified of her because that’s healthy for her to be aware of what she’s messing with

(pls don’t die again)

She backs off touching Amara while trying to exude concern over her, so I think that is a sign Rowena is being careful not to overstep 

*crossing fingers*

-

Okay we must be nearly at the halfway point maybe things will happen in the other half of the episode *gulps in fear*

-

Things are happening!

-

Owl!!

-

Oh my god Lucifer called her “Auntie Amara” 

So if there’s Uncle Crowley to her, Rowena is Lucifer’s Great Aunt by simple maths

Also confirms all those jokes about Dean complaining to Cas about his aunt hitting on him like at an awkward family dinner party

The only thing more fucked up than trying to sort out the love triangles in this show is the family tree

-

Oh no Rowena is backing off in fear from Amara

please be okay

-

Okay Amara’s making her scry for her and she’s lying about it and AMAZINGLY Team Horn is still talking

(we’ll come up with a better name later)

Amara returns the gesture of the cheek pat with no fear and a condescending tone so Rowena’s lost out and her leverage was very temporary >.>

Ruuunnnn

-

Why did Crowley even COME to the Winchesters if he says he has all the cards? We even know he can use the hands of God without exploding in the process, so what exactly does he even require from them??

-

Amara and Rowena both communicate by burning messages into things, but Rowena is much more considerate not to do it into Cas :P 

-

So much time was spent arguing until the 20 minute mark we’ve just skipped straight ahead to everyone working together and some sort of agreement made… Obviously no love lost between Crowley and Rowena but we don’t even see their interaction or a reaction or anything :P

-

Aw Dean n Crowley finish each other’s sentences

-

that is a really wonky circle

-

I like how Rowena goes to hide behind the door like that will help

does explain why she wasn’t in any of the promo pics, massive spoilers aside

-

it’s interesting how they’re all treating Dean like a dangerous element in this that he might flip out and do something stupid for saving Cas and picking him over this fate of the world battle and by interesting I mean my heart is bleeding 

-

we have new Misha in holy fire lighting footage and he’s pulling the goddamn :3 face somehow

fuck off Lucifer I want Cas to be all intense in holy fire not you and your silly faces

-

um I mean I want Cas to be fine and not in holy fire *sweats nervously*

-

Also treading over 6x20′s epic confrontation in visual similarities in the same episode as reminding us of 8x17 is actually murdering me

-

hey the spell from 9x09? I wondered if they would 

-

Dean just said “Castiel” and I may die

-

I have it paused on Misha pulling a godawful face because I need a minute before dealing with the conflicting desire to see Cas and fear of Buckleming dialogue coming out of his mouth… they’re doing OK so far, but hey never too late with 10 minutes left

-

Fuck the first word out of Cas’s mouth was “Dean” *goes to stare out of the window* *reconsiders after 10 seconds because builders*

-

Dean cares about Cas so much it huurrts he was the one who cast the spell with his own blood and he’s come running right up to the edge of the fire to talk to Cas and his eyes are SO WIDE and you can see the ring of fire reflected in them…

-

I actually have a hand over my mouth and probably a very undignified expression now because of Lucifer mimicking Dean being concerned about Cas

Dude, the entire universe knows

and they want you to chill

-

Oh my god but Dean is so helpless though and Lucifer told him that Cas asked for it… but now Cas knows that Dean is FREAKING OUT about him like if he barely even knows what’s going on all he sees is Dean mad enough to make a holy fire ring and summon Lucifer to TALK to him

-

I don’t think Phil should have been allowed to direct this because he knows Dean’s angles too well and has picked the actual worst for making Dean look cute and tragic

fuck off Phil

-

Okay I was trying not to assume things based on promo stuff with no context even though this very likely was going to be a 9x10 re-do with Crowley in Cas (??? how), mostly because that implied that Cas’s internal landscape is the Bunker, but now we’re here I’m just going to slide under the desk and watch the rest from down here

-

Cas has a TV 

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah

Cas x TV is such an interesting story over this show, but I suppose just in season 11 it’s linked directly to his retreat from action and his PTSD and sense of worthlessness as he buries himself in watching… Lucifer wasn’t so kind as to make a nice place for Cas like Gadreel did for Sam, so Cas is retreating into his coping methods from before… Making it clear that this whole thing is absolutely linked to his PTSD

-

I’m trying to work out if he’s at his spot at the table or Dean’s - I’m leaning towards his (which is right next to Dean’s) and the TV IN Dean’s spot

Oh my god no, he’s in Dean’s spot

*slams the pause button*

Okay so remember when 10x18 happened and it was lovely and tragic and there was that whole Last Supper scene? Well I ended up conducting a massive investigation into wtf was up with the table in the bunker kitchen and then between that and rewatching my way around and just keeping an eye out since, it’s made me realise that generally Sam and Dean have very specific seats (11x14 they kind of swapped seats, which made sense because 11x13 Dean handed the burden of killing Amara to Sam so they were kind of “swapped”) but traditionally of the 8 seats at the table Sam always takes the 2nd closest to the end with his back to the door, and Dean takes the one opposite. Actually, the thread I noticed strongest was I suppose from 9x13, the fight there - which Dean and Sam flared up over earlier this episode - was Sam and Dean digging in their heels over that and the table became also associated with that argument and the brodependency - it wasn’t a coincidence for example that 11x11 had Dean letting Sam off the hook for the Purgatory thing while they were sitting in the same seats as the 9x13 argument. 10x18 had Sam extremely isolated at the table via camera angles and the fact he was about to take the Book of the Damned to Rowena and was doing sneaky stuff for the sake of saving Dean. Likewise he’s there in 10x01, in full angry finding Dean meltdown. 10x14 again Sam is sitting there when he says to Cas that Dean is in trouble, cue the whole desperate attempt to save Dean that lead to 10x18…

I’ve actually got less to say about Dean’s spot than this table in relation to Sam - it’s a meta thing I’m way more interested in for Sam for once despite how I usually skew Dean or Cas related stuff when I’m obsessing about something

BUT Cas is at Dean’s seat, not his “own” and the argument the table is metaphorical for is the one that Sam and Dean were having about saving Cas too now… Dean is arguing Cas wants to be saved, Sam is agreeing with the evidence so far that he does not, as well as colouring it with his own perspective from this long running argument of Carver era

Aaand that’s why I jumped to see Cas in Dean’s seat

not shippy

I swear

…

lil bit shippy

-

You KNOW Cas is broken when he says he has no idea why the Bunker kitchen in his mind has better reception for the TV instead of having some weird deep explanation 

he was fiddling with the antennae when Crowley came in so he’s clearly NOT getting good reception, even if this is the best he can find

this is clearly deeply symbolic of miscommunication going on somewhere or else the futility of Cas’s TV watching >.>

-

Oh NO Crowley is assuming that Cas is like this because Lucifer but he’s nooot he’s just broken :(

-

… TBH I feel like I’ve inadvertently done myself a very poor favour of watching 7x21 over the last few days because this is bizarrely reminiscent of the “Sorry!” conversation just because Cas is unwilling to help and Crowley’s like “you know what’s happening out there?!?” and Cas is like “idgaf” and basically I keep paralleling Buckleming to Edlund and I’m actually kind of really enjoying this episode

maybe their fuck up was the cold open and general poor pacing/middling dialogue that is easy to overlook even if this episode is direly talky talky talky because it’s still getting the job done??

I am being way too hopeful here, 10 minutes is less than they need to fuck up, I mean the turn around on 10x21 to actual hell was the last 5 minutes :P

-

Noooo Cas has realised Dean was talking to him for real and it’s sunk in and he’s smiling extremely fondly about how ridiculous Dean is… Maybe Misha has just forgotten not to move his face so much when playing Cas but that is one of the biggest actual Cas smiles we’ve ever seen 

-

Having Lucifer, Crowley and Cas all hanging out at the Bunker is weirdly like the sitcom version of the show where the huge players all just chill.

The red lights behind Cas are nothing to the red lights in the hall - that’s definitely the same emergency shutdown lights as heralded demon!Dean to herald Lucifer wandering into the scene

-

“Guy’s, you’re going to break something”

Cas I love you and I miss you please come back for me if you won’t come back for Dean

-

Nooo, stop breaking the bunker

even if it’s fake

-

I can’t believe this exorcism. It’s making me laugh too much. Sam has the biggest cross ever and Dean is flicking holy water like “i’m heeelping”

-

Cas heard them though :D He knows they’re out there and care

Crowley mis-reports that Lucifer has his hooks into Cas

-

Aw man we’re in that last 5 minutes here we go, Amara’s here, Rowena is freaking out, Sam and Dean are helpless bystanders…

Well we know Misha is in a fair number of the episodes after this (we haven’t even seen the ridiculous sulphur piles yet) so I’m going to guess if Amara seems to vaporise him - Lucifer that is - that’s not the end. 

Is she going to bite it? Or Rowena for the 2nd time?

-

Oh my god she calls Lucifer “nephew” as well this is ridiculous 

-

Whoops she’s not dead

-

… Um whoops Dean yelled “Cas!!” instead of being concerned about Amara and… she… force-poked Dean? Idk what that was. 

Jealousy :P

He picked sides in this love triangle and she did not appreciate it >.> Guess she can hurt him after all! Guess who has a totally unfair imbalance of power in their relationship?? (If you did not answer “the chaotic god from before the dawn of time” you’re wrong)

-

Anyway they’re gone

-

Rowena lives!

-

Leg it, and never come near these people again. Trust me.

-

Holy shit has Dean drunk six beers between now and then? Or is he tidying??

Sam’s holding two more

-

Dean’s setting them up like pins for bowling

-

Amazingly the last 3 minutes seem like they might just be… talky talky talky, explaining what just happened

-

I feel sorry for Sam and Dean because they kinda look like idiots just because they’re explaining for us like WE’RE idiots but in character to each other. They should just break the fourth wall and drag out a board with diagrams on it and spare their characterisation 

-

Oh no now they’re talking about Cas

The war room table is much more associated with Cas and Dean’s issues this season - 11x03, 11x06, 11x14 (okay that was Casifer) and now here… I guess Sam and Dean stepping away from their usual table where they deal with the issue between themselves means they have a different sort of conversation… Cas as a proxy to their fight over a different table. 

-

Oh my god he actually WAS doing skittles with the beer bottles okay that’s cool

Sort of a turn around on Dean this season as he decides to take action and even though he was made to feel so passive yet again, he’s rejecting that and… propelling himself forward? 

Why do I feel like that was not scripted, especially with how it’s used to go into the next shot with Lucifer getting thrown around?

(Into a similar looking train as 11x06 that Cas hopped down from before beating the crap out of Metatron)

-

Is Lucifer trying to DEAL with Amara?

Oh wow look Lucifer is pulling the whole “we both hate God” card that we all thought he would if he and Amara were allowed to hang out

fancy that :P

-

And Amara’s using him as bait

fascinating, this didn’t work when Dean was dying back in Faith and John didn’t come… We’re actually putting God and John’s parenting skills in competition? It’s literally 0% a coincidence Amara just pointed out Lucifer is apparently the older son (… which I can’t remember what was ever said about him and Michael over season 5 but shhhh, we can shuffle their birth order for a parallel apparently if Michael was the older brother as I highly suspect he was supposed to be >.> What even IS continuity at this point?)

-

I’m glad they confirmed Cas is too deep to feel much of what’s going on with Lucifer >.> 

*resumes wrapping him in blankets and sobbing*


	11. 11x20

expectations - for the sake of peace of mind so I could sleep, that Robbie somehow completely fucks this up and it’s a dull linear talky talky episode

… not so low I didn’t decide to start taking notes immediately or that I didn’t wake up at 7am like “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH”

-

“Supernatural, by Carver Edlund”

Oh no here are the expectations

-

Oh NO I managed to suppress the info that Metatron was in this and now I’m back to freaking out about my fave writer who writes great stuff about writing, writing my fave writer character and my least fave but in a good way writer character

and that they look in a promo pic like they’re writing together

-

That sure is the recap of an episode where you reveal Chuck is God

-

Okay what the fuck Robbie are you reading my blog

<http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/135004077428/idea-so-a-lot-of-people-all-think-chuck-is>

(further exploration of God as a dog here: <http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/tagged/dean-vs-dogs>)

-

Robbie Thompson I love you but this has to stop 

literally 3 seconds of episode time have elapsed and I am trembling

-

Oh god it’s Metatron dumpster diving

he’s learned empathy!!!!!!!!!!

-

I have no idea what that transition was yet but if Metatron just fed pastrami to a dog out of the goodness of his heart (HE HAS A HEART) and then that caused God to reach out to him because Metatron demonstrated selflessness and finally LEARNED THE DAMN LESSON (as per all God ever set them up to do), then the Dog = God theory just got confirmed before God = Chuck theory

-

he calls the dog Toto and says they’re not on Earth any more. Robbie I swear to  ~~god~~   ~~dog~~  Chuck do you have checklist to get in your Oz reference per episode?

-

Fuckin’ world’s best dad mug we CALLED IT

-

Oh no

Metatron please stop talking right now

Although considering his past form chucking Chuck’s books in the fire this is almost polite

-

“You didn’t even like Home??! Or All Hell Breaks Loose?!” Okay so we know Chuck’s favourite books then :P

I’m guessing those are super important mentions because both feature ghostly Winchester parents, aside from anything else (like being classic good epiodes instead of shitting on Bugs or the Racist Truck Episode some more :P), we have very loose spoilers that the end of the season may feature them - or at least Mary - again

-

Oh my CHUCK he’s referencing Metatron burning one of the books.

(Tall Tales, and of course Chuck is referencing 9x18 because of course he is)

-

why do I get the feeling Robbie sneakily, without telling anyone else, has set this up from the start? 

-

When I say that I mean literally since season 1 

who the fuck are you Robbie

are you God

-

I’m being facetious but I did also pause it on Metatron holding up the book to cackle about this and realised that the back of Cas’s head is present in this episode so that’s something

-

Omg we saw his face!!

-

Hi Cas

-

Robbie you fucking troll what the fuck was that music cue and God glowing and 

-

AND HE GAVE METATRON SUNGLASSES BECAUSE HE WAS ABOUT TO SHOW OFF HIS RADIANCE

-

ROBBIE

-

*smacks head on the desk with the placement of the episode title*

CAN WE GO TEN SECONDS WITHOUT YOU BEING A LITTLE SHIT SO WE CAN WATCH THIS EPISODE? 

-

Although Metatron saying Supernatural is underrated and “due a reboot” is amusing, because season 11 has felt like a reboot, and for all we know Carver may be out and Dabb era beginning based on who’s writing the finale… Whatever it is, people haven’t stopped talking about season 11 feeling like a fresh start for most of the season

-

I feel like I have gone through a religious experience by the time we get to the Winchesters but I’m now also really distracted by Drama happening outside the house because a huge truck just got trapped in the neighbourhood Truck Pit, and now there’s a lot of shouting and panicking

but at least the builders, who WERE messing around on the scaffolding too close for comfort, have rushed off to help so I have some peace and quiet to watch :P

-

Dean chilling and being a troll beer-ironing seems even sillier in contrast to the cold open

like

God has just revealed himself to his old right-hand writer, and here’s Dean being a shithead

On the other hand, that was possibly the only way to make the next scene memorable in the slightest after that reveal, short of Dean being like “great maybe it’s a lead so we can save Cas and I can finally kiss him”

A good laugh works too

-

God r u okay

-

There is a weird synergy between Amara looking at cat pics on the internet in 11x06 and God posting them. Almost… a… clever… metaphor… *narrows eyes*

FUCK OFF ROBBIE

God, the Creator, running a blog posting cat pictures (presumably that he has seen on his travels - this is literally the headcanon about Cas stopping to snap pics whenever he sees a cat) is the one adding and curating content. Amara, the one locked out of having a say in Creation, being only a bored teen scrolling the cat pictures on the internet, passively watching them go by…

-

“I started a new series of books… Revolution!” “it’s not going anywhere”

Robbie has no chill whatsoever

-

Aw booo he was Chuck the entire time (God, not Robbie)

I liked the idea of him as a vessel NOT trolling everyone the entire time but genuinely only getting flashes of insight from God and being fallibly human

-

Hey it’s the “amulet thingy”… “I turned it off”

okay so these plot hole covers are kinda flimsy to my “wrote 1000s of words on the subject” self, and Robbie’s going for all the simplest explanations, but I also like that he snatched the amulet so SOMEONE’s had it the whole time 

(I am trying not to flip out at how Robbie is Mr Foreshadowing or master of planting stuff for later (THE BOTTLE RUFUS GAVE BOBBY) but tbh this is a performance art)

I assume God is something of a scavenger picking up all the cool stuff they forget about

He probably has the Colt in his back pocket, ready to slip back into the game if it was ever needed

-

!!! Metatron called Cas God’s “fave”

that’s totally not a major plot point already this season or anything

-

Oh my god THAT IS NOT HOW YOU GET A TRUCK OUT OF A HUGE HOLE IN THE GROUND 

they have a plank under its wheels while they rev the truck and it’s sending a jackhammer noise up the street

-

“You’ll never guess where it was this whole time” (”Written by Robbie Thompson” appears on screen) so I’m assuming we’re going to find out at some point if not now then in season 15 and it’s going to be an even bigger fucking troll than this episode :P

-

Nacho cheese, huh? there’s some Leviathans out there who agree with that too

I never did managed to write up a full meta on Leviathans vs human comforts but it was essentially saying how hilarious it was that human creation made all this stuff that they appreciated and by eating them all they’d kill that spark of creativity that was making the world a place they actually enjoyed being. “Everything’s better with cheese” and all

somehow this show has a real pro-cheese message. … didn’t Dean cite cheese from a spray can as a good thing about the future when he time-travelled in 7x12 - a Robbie episode? I remember laughing about that in the re watch because of the commonality of horrible processed cheese as an object of admiration

like, we’ve hit peak humanity since processed cheese

God confirmed it

-

God: An Autobiography

I can’t believe he’s asking Metatron for editing help

-

Hahaha he’s not allowed to be an angel again though

-

This is making me assume that God is a goner by the end of the season if he’s writing his life story - you tend to do that when you know there won’t be too much more to tell

He and Amara are going to take each other out and leave the universe to do its thing and put more horrible processed cheese on everything

-

Oh yeah the Winchesters are in this story

-

oh no the cop we saw dead in the promo pics is a newlywed

the Darkness infecting the townsfolk appears to manifest with depression as the first symptom… the show’s been around the block a few times with that metaphor (I’m thinking of season 7 again, which for Robbie is when Common Era of the show started)

-

CHUCK IS ME WHEN SOMEONE IS READING MY STUFF

-

I recognise that little hopeful peeking over the back of the bench in my bones :P

-

Okay NOW we’re shitting on Bugs - never too far away :P

-

Oooh and now we’re finally getting to the plot relevant stuff :P Chuck says he’s on a deadline, then Metatron presses him for leaving Amara out of the story - you know, SUBTLE explanation of what God’s done about her so far - and gets all douchey and “this isn’t her story, it’s mine”

I am now remembering Metatron in 8x23 telling Cas that God was a bit of a misogynist and laughing about how this actually is coming to fruition AND weirdly making me sympathetic to METATRON’s position here as he fights for Amara to have her story told, not least because he WARNED us about this 3 seasons ago

he really has developed empathy

-

oh no poor Deputy

thinking of Bugs, “911 my emergency is fog” is not much better than “[911 my emergency is bugs](http://elizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com/post/120254049038/blackqill-yes-hello-911-my-emergency-is-bugs)” 

I hope that was a very meta comment from Robbie :P

-

Metatron finishes reading Chuck’s story while Chuck is shooting pool, and needs another drink

uhoh, the ending is probably kinda grim

“less about detail and more about balance” 

balance has been a theme of this season!

-

well Chuck may be a douche (and this story sounds FANTASTICALLY awful considering the subject matter being interesting) but at least it’s canon he’s bi 

**God is bi**

I guess that means every other time he interfered in the story he’s been a canon bi character officially (Dabb loudly implied it in 11x10 but that’s not the same as God saying he had some boyfriends taking this to unmistakable “no God is meant to be bi” levels :P) which means he’s a REOCCURRING bi character since… I think 2x13 was the first time we saw Mysterious Ways at work? 

In the annuls of this show, season 11 is certainly… something

-

haha Metatron says God isn’t likeable

You can talk

-

Hahaha 2 paragraphs on the archangels

-

What on earth did Lucifer do to Christmas

wait

we’ve SEEN Lucifer playing Santa this season

WHAT THE FUCK is season 11 even about 

-

I like how Metatron is implying that an angel who rebels would be a favourite

since Cas too :P They skip over it a bit, but obviously Metatron has a ton of appreciation for interesting characters, since he tries making them himself or BEING one himself… Or, well, making Cas into HIS villain like he’s implying Chuck did with Lucifer - I’m amazed I didn’t see anyone paralleling Lucifer’s speech to Metatron douchery from the end of season 9, but I guess here in a Robbie episode it makes much more sense to talk about it :P (Also it was pretty surface level self-explanatory at the time but only now it becomes a nuanced plot point)

-

Aw well here’s the response to Lucifer going around saying he’s been set up to be the villain in 11x18, and Chuck saying he never meant that…

-

Metatron brings up the difference between truth and fairytales :3

storytelling!

-

Metatron is flipping out about how exciting souls are

God is like “nauseous” about what it was like to create souls… little worried about what that says about them and what they’re for *still side-eyeing Heaven*

-

He called God “nebbish” - he literally has gone on a character development arc that puts him in a greater position of character development than GOD, to teach GOD a thing or two from his own shitty experiences

I don’t know what I expected of Metatron this episode, but “pride” was not one of them

Someone get the guy a sandwich

-

he also called God a dick to his face

-

“write for an audience of one” Metatron’s writing advice has also seriously come some leaps and bounds since he was spitting out shitty advice to poor Gadreel

…

the real question is: what would Gadreel’s face be doing right now if he could see Metatron

-

God THREW AWAY THE PAGES

-

I’m weirdly proud of him too now

-

I can’t believe Metatron is empowering God onto an arc of self-growth and personal revelation like wtf

I was laughing about 7x21 recently and Dean saying to Cas shortly after they ever first heard Metatron’s name, about how he might be able to stop a lot of bad. This is like… BECOME WHO YOU WERE MEANT TO BE, METATRON

better late than never

-

asdfgkjgskgssdlhsg but THROWING AWAY THE PAGES I MEAN

-

Oh dear, Sam and Dean rolled up in their joint worst plaids: Sam’s red and black doomy one, and Dean’s MoC black and red 

trouble is brewing

they’ve had… 3 minutes screen time

I don’t care 

-

Chuck’s chapter titles are literally clickbait headlines about being God 

“Why I never answer prayers, and you should be glad I don’t” “the truth about divine intervention and why I avoid it at all costs”

-

“Why”

-

Oh Chuck’s face… So he blames Amara’s inherent nature for his loneliness so they’re just, like… Systematically incompatible as siblings

I find this really weird because being a twin like the myself, I don’t see my brother as my direct opposite: I kind of see us as having the exact same internal workings even if we’re superficially opposite in a lot of ways (I am short, round and talkative, he is tall, skinny and silent :P) this whole literary concept of fraternal twins as black and white opposites is not my experience and it makes me really resentful of it as a device

also, like, all of everything using that trope doubling down hard on the gender binary as a result >.> Amara is female because God is male. *wow* 

revolutionary :P

-

Anyway the whole theme here is that God’s been dealing in absolutes and NOT seeking balance and of course Amara IS his balance

-

I wonder if God being bi is actually thematically about that balance too - he had some girlfriends so of course he had some boyfriends to balance it out

on the Chuck level when he’s going around having the human experience, he’s testing the waters on balance and how that’s something that’s inherent in creation - but as God he still has a ways to go and personality-wise on the much bigger level he’s just not there yet

-

he wanted to stop Amara being “her” and trying to suppress someone else’s personality is now the original sin of this universe :P God was hoping to change her but she clearly didn’t want to be changed - it’s a close theme to how the Winchesters struggle with their own duality in personality clashes, which fuel the whole story (I was talking about this after Baby because of the shot of them yin and yang in the car in red and blue conflict colours)

God and Amara also represent one of those really cool dualities of the creator and the destroyer, with belief systems that assume that Creation is only one of many along the line and the Destroyer has already consumed countless and the Creator will make countless more after

God stalling that so the petri dish could flourish has created a much more complex world, but that just means more for Amara to eat

-

God saying that nature knows how to wipe the slate… now they’re discussing Noah’s ark as a way to wipe the slate vs Amara destroying the slate (while standing by the side of the water - I’m getting real “don’t step on that fish” vibes)

I was wondering for most of this year if the universe would get a do-over at the end of this season - almost just as a way to END the constant escalation of the mytharc and let the universe rest and have us back to basics for season 12 because where can you even go from here - and this does seem to be suggesting that a cosmic do-over of sorts might be in order, even if the world itself doesn’t seem to experience great upheaval like Biblical flooding… 

Now Chuck is saying the world will all be gone

which I’m guessing is the “real” escalation of this season since we haven’t had it totally clear in the text what the stakes are yet… I mean yeah Amara saying she’ll destroy everything is one thing, but God saying it will happen is another because he’s giving her threat real meaning

(contemplating allowing her to do it)

-

oh god we’re only 23 minutes in

-

Amara’s message is that it’s a mirror - she’s “showing them all the truth” I guess about how awful human nature is? 

Goes with Metatron telling Chuck to “hold up a mirror” when writing about himself anyway

and the endless theme of mirrors on the show used for characters when they’re looking at themselves and contemplating their own darkness - 9x18 having a particularly strong example that showed demon!Dean in the offing :P

-

“It’s all going away forever… but not you, Dean”

oooh dear

Amara seems pretty intent on keeping him, then

-

Chuck seems to be (heh) on the same page as Amara: “Nature: divine. Human nature? Toxic.”

-

Same thing Lucifer was complaining about in 11x18

-

hehehe “the world would still be spinning with demon!Dean in it” - oh dear, calling them out on this saving each other thing from the highest level

Oh dear God just confirmed he’s the one always bringing Cas back to help the Winchesters 

I mean they had their suspicions, but the season 7 ones were very blurry about who was behind it and why since the BIG story was sort of over

so God really did just bring Cas back for personal reasons

-

I can not believe that Metatron is arguing with God like this

I mean

he’s super self-serving and doesn’t like the idea of Creation ending because he’s in it

but he’s literally doing all the legwork to try to convince God to help???

-

*sipping a glass of Metatron hater tears*

if that’s a thing :P

-

God is hiding - not like Metatron wasn’t introduced in an episode called “the Great Escapist” 

Dear lord I love Metatron so much and I’ve always enjoyed him as a scummy villain I resonated with, but holy crap if he isn’t becoming a fave character on his own merit today

God is a Metatron parallel and Metatron knows about how literary parallels work :P

-

Hehe and he admits his writing was bad

“at least I was never a coward”

Um, dude

-

never mind, it seemed to work

-

God is pissed :3

-

“You were just the closest angel to the door when I walked in” 

OW

he may get killed off here

But he’s earned a good death if he does. 

-

Wow Metatron is almost crying over this

-

Sam saves a baby and Dean forgets to close the door properly behind him when they’re fleeing a volatile fog cloud

-

this has some serious parallels to the start of the season

-

Sam breathed in the crap again too

Oh look he’s infected

-

Dean seems to be fine

-

Dean like “I’m not going to leave my brother” ALSO parallels Croatoan. They have had like 5 minutes of screen time by now, so I suppose ripping off the old season 2 episode and 11x01 is a good way as way to fill time with the obligatory “hey remember these two guys are in the show” between God n Metatron’s editing session

-

Chuck’s on his 3rd draft

-

Also Metatron and Chuck are smiling at each other again

Maybe Metatron will survive

-

although Metatron is really wrapping up his whole arc so he may die for the greater good soon :P

-

TBH no shade on Robbie but when I said this was going to be a talky talky episode I did not realise what I was setting myself up for

on the other hand if you wanna parallel 11x18 vs 11x20 for “how to write a talky talky episode”

-

There’s 5 minutes left so I’m assuming we Deus Ex Machina this bitch

-

like, in the most literal sense of the word

-

Holy shit Metatron you’re crying about how great Humanity is

LOOK AT HIM

ROBBIE WHAT HAVE YOU DONE

WHY DO I CARE SO MUCH ABOUT METATRON

-

HE SAID HUMANITY WAS BETTER THAN GOD

-

“he’s in love… with humanity!”

yeah you eat those words 

-

“but above all they never give up… but you do.”

*screeeeeeeeching*

-

What is even going on with Sam and Dean 

Dean’s all “i’ll never give you up” and Sam’s all “you’re gonna pick Amara over us!” and meanwhile Dean has neglected his duct tape duties so people will DIE and honestly it’s good this is a 10 minute episode where they’re concerned because the duct tape vs fog thing is the second worst concept since Bugs, and I’m glad Robbie sent himself up over this already because holy shit this is ridiculous :P

-

Sam and Dean lost in the fog sealed into a room trying to pick each other over everyone else while innocent people bang on the door and scream because Dean didn’t ductape the door while freaking out about Sam is the single worst example of their saving each other behaviour ever 

omg what a potently terrible image this makes as they get completely swallowed up in the fog

good thing God already covered how stupid it was for us 10 minutes ago :P

-

I think he prayed and the banging stopped but it sort of sounds like Dean just yelled at the innocent people to stop thumping on the door

-

2 minutes left…

God’s on his final page again

Metatron is drinking with his doggie

What an episode

-

Okay so now Chuck is just playing guitar

-

Omg the glowy amulet thingy

-

he’s heeelping

-

Sam did not have that in his pocket the entire time :P Although it seems to imply he did to Dean

-

Is God serenading Metatron

this really really sounds like he’s serenading Metatron, especially with the way Metatron’s looking at him after he read the pages

-

awwww Deus Ex Machina… The one time I’ve ever been rooting for that trope

… the one time I’ve been rooting for Metatron to die he doesn’t 

looks like he has some story left in him :P

-

“we should probably talk”

I’m assuming we cut to credits because the next line was

“NO SHIT”


	12. 11x21

expectation: it’s the last Buckleming episode of the season

based on their patterns I have one off-the-wall awful speculation that would be very them but probably not happen: there’s an actual pattern between “terrible taste in men” and “had a few boyfriends” rather than it being a one off comment and Buckleming are very astute at picking up patterns and trends in the text and dropping them on you like an anvil, if they were actually discussed in the writers’ room. So in the interest of balance, I’m assuming both God and Amara snog Dean at some point in the episode

-

Okay the “obviously I’m a god” “you’re not a God” *holy glowy* “God!” thing is hilarious

it’s like a Tumblr shitpost about the scenario except the actual show

Also: as far as I’ve seen no one’s actually made the gifset yet?? I may be super lazy and gif it out of the recap at some point :P

-

This recap manages to recap both Dean x Amara and Destiel this season AND Cas’s state of mind, so I’m like 2/3rds of the way okay with this

also Cas from 5x02 mmmmmm

-

also v sinister with the end on “it’s not her story it’s mine” as the parting comment from the recap lingering over his face so I’m assuming God does carry on being a dick

-

Okay I should not have been eating toast I just gasped very loudly and now I will die

*swallows toast* 

Oh Kevin was just a ghost still. Are they  _really_  going back to the veil thing after all this time? It’s been fucked for 3 seasons

And literally nothing has happened despite the looming ghostpocalypse 9x14 and 9x22 threatened

except that, just now :P

* * *

Dying apparently really does weird stuff to your hair. I swear Kevin had the same “i am dead” haircut as Jimmy did

* * *

Imagine if whichever Winchester may die at the end of the season ends up with the neat side combed hair in season 12

* * *

Also: I hope the car is okay 

they left it in Hope Springs unless Chuck thought to bring it with them

* * *

I’m eating the rest of my toast before I watch any more (in the interest of fearing who else will come back as a ghost and make me choke to death) but I like Dean’s perch

A: because if I lived in the Bunker, that would get a cushion and become the most Lizzy spot in the Bunker (so I like Dean having my taste in perch) and B: I was thinking how when the camera was on Sam it looked like he was looking up at God, but Dean is engaged in a dominance display and sitting HIGHER than God, like God picked one of the stools and Dean was like, welp, he is not going to get to sit in the highest spot in the room *casts around for something chair-like but higher*

* * *

“I mean no disrespect”…. oh dear :P 

yeah he looks like he’s fearing being smited as he talks

Thanks Dean

“But you did nothing”

*hugs Dean*

This is good dialogue

* * *

Dean’s crying someone stop him

* * *

“being over-involved isn’t parenting, it’s enabling” I can see why God has issues with the codependency arc, especially as breaking it would basically in some ways be trying to reset the way Dean parents Sam and help them get past it - each protective over-reaction from the Winchester to each other just enables the next that much more? 

* * *

Wow Dean cried 3 tears instead of the single manly tear

* * *

“I know you had a complicated upbringing, but don’t confuse me with your dad”

So… this is where Dean punches God?

He’s angry again anyway… If this was meant to all be angry and carry on with angriness as Dean’s overall response to God through the episode, then I like how we had a dip into vulnerability from anger first instead and added some nuance to this scene - considering it happens first off in the episode, if Dean was written as just “angry angry angry” for most of the episode, then that would get boring. I’m assuming the fact he hardened again at the end as a reaction to that comment sets the tone for further anger anyway, especially as God hasn’t given a satisfactory answer.

Acting choices! \o/

* * *

Meanwhile: here’s two characters who ARE the fucked up kid by God’s parenting, helpfully in one body

*pauses it to not watch Cas getting tortured* *twiddles thumbs*

* * *

I should probably watch it instead of staring at his trenchcoat sleeve in horror for the rest of the day

* * *

Gross as it currently is, I’ve missed his face

-

Lucifer is super scary like wow that expression as he mocks Amara

not so comic villain now

-

oooh “Directed by Thomas J Wright” 

[http://www.supernaturalwiki.com/index.php?title=Thomas_J._Wright](https://t.umblr.com/redirect?z=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.supernaturalwiki.com%2Findex.php%3Ftitle%3DThomas_J._Wright&t=YWFmM2E0OTNkYTJlYWFjNGZlMDkwYmJiYTdjYWI1NDQzYzljMjU1NSxPaGlORjlLUg%3D%3D&b=t%3AEoTmUHpiEEiE91JGAXVv3Q&p=https%3A%2F%2Felizabethrobertajones.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F144246535913%2F11x21-watching-notes-expectation-its-the-last&m=1)

that explains a lot, just based on the last 7 minutes of episode unfairly raising my expectations :P 

(yes he’s the crypt scene/reverse crypt scene guy as well as directing a disproportionate amount of Robbie Thompson episodes in general. He’s done one Buckleming, which was 9x09, and therefore is also responsible for seeing Kevin out (that must have felt cathartic for him doing this episode), but on the positive side, is therefore also the man responsible for that bar scene where Cas looked like he was going to suggest they go get a room to Dean basically any moment, before Gadreel interrupted, and that was all direction trumping dialogue)

-

I was watching 8x17 last night and didn’t post the notes yet out of fear of what I was typing being instantly debunked (because of course I was talking about season 11 and also I finished at literally 2am on the dot aka whenever SPN airs in the US) but I was talking about how the Crypt Scene echoes through Carver Era and having clocked the director’s name I feel like tapping out of this episode already because there’s literally no way they’re delivering on that based on the promo stuff so I’ve accidentally hyped myself up >.>

-

oh this is the conversation that seemed Buckleming-y in the other promo

that snipe about “even if you didn’t return the favour” makes more sense knowing the scene between God and Dean that came before being exactly the conversation Dean had to have with him about faith - not so out of the blue. 

And God decides to duck out of the conversation after telling them he has no idea how to find Amara for them, which does make me suspicious he’s avoiding telling them everything, especially as this comes after a reminder that Amara is torturing Lucifer to try and make contact with God, so unless this is catastrophically bad writing, God definitely seems the more suspicious here on these conflicting stories

-

he also asks to go have a shower which seems ominous for his long term health considering we also see him in the red hoodie in promo stuff… there’s weird shades of early season 9 all over the place between Kevin and this, which seems like a callback to 9x03 and Cas finally getting to live in the Bunker for 3 minutes in a really grim kind of corruption of the theme, having his father there being an unwelcome house guest with a ton of emotional conflict

(not going to lie I’d watch the sit com… I mean we’re already generally always a hair away from the show descending into a sit com anyway)

-

Dean’s hesitation as he carefully pauses and then enunciates “Lucifer” when telling Chuck that Amara’s grabbed Casifer. NOT mentioning Cas.

-

*Dean struggling with emotion in the background while Sam talks*

Oooh God that was rude reminding Sam that Lucifer was sprung free because of him. I think the assessment that God is not a Sam fan seems pretty true - I mean, 4x18 all the way back when, he was trying to tell Sam not to do the demon blood thing, AND THEN SAM LET LUCIFER OUT THAT TIME TOO *lightbulb* so Chuck’s simultaneously telling Sam off for BOTH instances which is why he sort of ends up blaming Sam even if in THIS case Cas is somewhat more responsible for Lucifer getting out in the sense that he asked him :P

-

I love all the shots of Amara standing in the doorway of the huge room they’re in with all the light falling on her and she’s one tiny dark figure in all of it

-

aw she turned Lucifer off. I was enjoying him.

why is she pawing at him

-

Amara beams herself into the Bunker to talk to Dean, who’s on his third beer and DID just ask Amara where she was

I like that she goes from hovering her hand over Cas’s prone form to finding Dean

until further notice, since I’m here in Buckleming land anyway and they are the proud purveyors of The Longing Retcon, she found her way here by sensing the longing Dean was beaming at Cas and following it home

-

*takes a deep breath and hits play again* C’mon Buckleming we’re 11 minutes in. You guys got this.

-

Oh god 

oh god

so she shows Dean poor Cas, and then Cas disappears and then Amara keeps talking and Dean’s eyes are still on the empty spot where Cas was a moment before for several words, like he’s barely listening to Amara and is still fixed on the spot where Cas was and then only after several seconds his eyes flick back to her

-

also not for nothing she just told Dean that God was ignoring her so the wank from the promo that they wrote this badly is for nothing as it’s now very clear that God IS lying or at least that Dean is being shown 2 sides of the story and being asked which one to pick (and Amara to the viewers’ eyes IS the more honest in this scenario, so having her word proven over God’s - heh “god’s the word” and all - will make for an uncomfortable moment for working out which one is more trustworthy)

-

ALSO she’s directly haunting Dean with visions of Cas bloody and swaying on the spot, which is 10x23 all over again (pure and unadulterated with Rudy) so HEY here’s my echoes from the crypt scene evolving and evolving: now this is echoes of the reverse crypt scene’s fallout haunting Dean, showing him once again Cas in a huge amount of distress in almost exactly the same manner as he was seeing him before

Giving Dean the option to respond in a way he wasn’t able to/failed to do before in the end of season 10

-

AS SEASONS GO, season 11 answering for the fuck ups of the past in a metatextual way is doing almost a better job than the in show theme of the same description

-

And of course Cas is reinforced as his motivation

-

oh hey it’s this guy whoever that is… Guy in the red sweater from the promo pics

it seems like he’s infected with the fog but I swear he’s just hanging out later

-

Dean and Sam are still researching but instead of 3 beers, they’re drinking coffee

-

Hey, don’t make fun of God singing “crappy old folk songs” - no one has recovered from his last crappy old folk song that we heard him sing

They literally are dealing with the sit com issue of having God as a housemate

wtf is this show

“you told God to cool it?”

“yeah I sleep”

…*Dean drafts a housemate agreement*

-

Sam’s still geeking out about God existing… 

-

“before it’s too late”

Dean’s BABBLING about the Amara thing - he says he didn’t ask for her but he kind of accidentally did in that fairy logic way where grumbling hypothetically is taken literally

And he’s so worried about Cas whyyy

Sam shushes him before he can angst too much because he somehow thinks they can keep secrets from their new housemate

-

Holy shit Dean’s dead guy robe is a Hand of God

this concept is being made a mockery of

-

Okay God is officially useless but between eating doughnuts and wearing the robe he’s also making a mockery of Dean in a quiet way, I guess paralleling deliberate inaction with Dean’s helplessness

His conversation starters about leaving Lucifer alone are getting tiring. MAN UP, GOD

-

“You eat bacon?” Dean’s face is so amused though

… I’ve watched 8x13 too recently, I’m just remembering him giving Aaron the same look over “everyone likes bacon!!”

I suppose Dean likes it getting divine approval

-

Meanwhile: thousands died

-

the news article contains spoilers about the bloke who survived :P 

-

Hey Metatron 

what are you doing

_why is there a shot from the last episode on the TV_

yikes that’s… so convenient I’m going to have to assume God planted it to tell Metatron what to do next

-

WHY DOES DEAN HAVE METATRON SAVED IN HIS PHONE

-

Until further notice they have a secret book club and Dean hate-texts him about the latest chapter of whatever they’re reading

-

I guess if Metatron is going to share the final manuscript with them, then they are actually breaking the rules of secret book club to meet in person

-

Huh, so this Donnatello bloke a prophet? Sam and me too are both suspicious he’s an Amara prophet not a God prophet… His awakening was all visions of her

What even is established lore any more

I suppose Bucklemming wrote 8x07, which also does have that one reference to Chuck probably being God from early early on in Carver era before they ever went back to it properly, just when Cas was saying he had to be dead because Kevin had the job

-

Fucking called it that God was going to have his feet all over the bunker tables

He’s now being paralleled almost directly to Cas, chillaxing and watching TV (curling, God, really?) as part of his whole “refusing to engage with the story” thing, but again the feet on tables is a Dean parallel thing, and he’s eating Chinese food which I guess most noticeably we’ve seen Dean try to eat horrible leftovers earlier in the season, although I’m also thinking about him eating the noodles in 10x13 when he was being super gross

it’s not a good association :P

Anyway I guess this season is all about trying to talk celestial beings away from the TV?

themes??

-

TBH Chuck is like the one person who should not be judging Dean about his porn collection if we now have to accept Chuck was God in episodes like Swan Song or Lucifer Rising, whichever one was where his response to the end of the world was trying to obtain an orgy (This is also reminding me why this characterisation in this episode may be a little OTT but it’s not out of character at all as it calls back to Chuck at his most cowardly)

weirdly re: 8x17 which I am now getting increasingly glad I did not post those notes of it last night, I was laughing about how Robbie responded to the little moment in 8x10 where Dean opens his laptop in front of Cas and there’s porn on it, with a one man crusade to invoke the “can’t act perverted in front of a love interest” trope with 8x11, 8x17 and 9x04 all having him cool about Sam or Charlie knowing he watches porn/seeing his porn collection/waving a porn mag at Sam etc… (Old news with Sam but importantly it was repeating it over and over right after that one time he made it weird with Cas, and dragging Charlie in as a control sample in the experiment) And then I was talking about how Buckleming took up the challenge after that and now we have Dean acting less alarmed about God himself snooping on his laptop than Cas catching a glimpse of the horrors on it >.> (Also I guess this bookends Buckleming’s contribution to the season with Cas seeing it anyway in 11x03 although what we’re expected to make of this parallel…)

-

This whole thing with the new prophet guy and Chuck is really weird and kind of uncomfortable and I don’t trust either of them - even this bloke accidentally being untrustworthy rather than maliciously - but if Amara chose to awaken him not Chuck, then Chuck is just letting weird stuff happen for the hell of it again, and I’m really uncomfortable about him casually letting the bring a threat home. I feel like he might be sort of trying to let them figure it all out for themselves, but they apparently take Donnatello to go rescue Casifer and I don’t like that unpredictable element being there >.>

I am still waiting for the Buckleming awful to kick in rather than the Buckleming weird pacing or unconvincing dialogue (which is part of what’s making me not trust this guy, because new characters introduced by Buckleming tend to not be wholly convincing anyway without any past episodes to reference to guess how the character matches up to how someone else wrote them :P) 

We’ve reached the stretch of the episode where a ton of stuff is all crammed in and we’re only halfway through

-

Oooh Metatron is drinking the death beer… Kingdom beer behind him

-

Wow surprising, Chuck’s going to sacrifice himself

-

*dun dun dun*

-

Uhoh Dean’s in the purple shirt that he’s wearing in 11x23 - either it’s new and picking up the association with the end of Chuck’s arc to be broken out twice in short succession as we’re warned Chuck will do the thing, and then when he does it, or this cut to the next day is the start of the equivalent amount of non-stop crap which had Dean wearing the maroon shirt for 3 episodes in a row between 10x23 and 11x02

-

And Chuck changed into the red hoodie for this conversation presumably about how he’ll die

-

ALSO he’s eating popcorn while watching the kids in the playground… Commentary on his position re: humanity for the last however long he’s been watching

his non-stop eating of course also references Dean’s non-stop eating in season 10 while he felt on the way out

-

“How is death by your sister a strategy” okay this actually is… critiquing… 10x23? 

Huh

-

“I still don’t understand how dying is a blueprint for success”

Dean learning some things too… I’m proud of him :D

-

“the Amara that I know” …. 

-

Huh Chuck is considering bargaining with Amara to leave her in charge and let it be her story? 

At this point even if this is a more honest conversation I’m not sure how I trust him

also we’re 3 episodes from the end so

Well, 2 and a 3rd episodes from the end

-

Also Dean is trying to talk him into doing something different

-

“You’re the firewall between light and dark”

weird choice of metaphor but accurate :P Maybe Chuck has seen how much security Dean has on his laptop to be able to download all that porn without killing the poor computer

it’s a metaphor

-

also are they talking about when God saved Dean as in “because God commanded it” from 4x01? Because AAAAAAH

The original framing of that ended up just being because the angels wanted their fight, but maybe God really did send the command to hoik Dean out of Hell through whatever channels

that crack post about “go get ‘em tiger” for Cas being told to go save Dean just became canon

-

Is Dean going around pep talking everyone

Dean just got 3 beers and then put one in the middle of the table…

… ah Sam’s coing back

with Metatron. Everyone’s in the Bunker! Metatron doesn’t get a beer

we have 10 minutes left and I’m very anxious about what happens next

because there’s only 10 minutes left to do it

- 

Also: Dean thinks it’s stupid when Metatron sends texts with emojis, but he totally thinks it’s adorable when Cas does it (established in another Buckleming episode).

Why are Buckleming paralleling Cas with Metatron

why

-

ooh okay so apparently Metatron approves that Donnatello is a prophet… apparently that means we have to too because for some reason Metatron is the most trustworthy character in the entire show now

-

hah Metatron drank Sam’s beer

-

He’s totally going to die, although maybe by Sam’s hand not what I was expecting of Amara getting him

-

yeeep there’s the plan I was expecting all along

always with the last 10 minutes, Buckleming. I still don’t trust you from last year

*continually reminds self that Cas appears to be in 11x23 and fine*

If Metatron sacrifices himself to save Cas I will flip

-

Meanwhile: Dean goes for a stroll in the woods

-

he actually is giving himself to Amara for the sake of saving Cas. This is actually EXPRESSING the love triangle? That is, Dean’s going off to “give in” to the creepy love connection he hates and fears for the sake of Cas, “picking” one bond over the other but only because he cares MORE for Cas he values his safety and freedom over what happens to himself? A false victory for Amara

-

he said “there can be no us” and she challenges him as to why he’s even here; he doesn’t answer but cut to the rescue attempt he’s providing a distraction for

-

If you said to me “Metatron rides shotgun in the Impala on a rescue mission to save Lucifer” I’d have been like what on earth is that crack fic and why are you reading it

-

Poor Cas

-

What is Metatron doing

I am concerned about what he’s doing while Lucifer is trash talking them

it makes me worried that he’s worried about Cas because I am worried about Cas

I am very worried about Cas

-

Dean give up his humanity?? Naaaah

-

This dialogue is so on the nose about anti-Dean things like he’s terrified he can’t control his connection to Amara and she’s like “just give up”

-

Have you MET Dean

-

OHHH she just found out that Dean “betrayed” her

you can’t be betrayed if he was never yours, honey

she just diagnosed Destiel right out of his head and figured out where his heart truly lies

-

Metatron is like “you go on without me” oh my god it’s happening it’s happening

has Metatron truly reached the “too good to die in a Buckleming episode” hall of fame with the likes of Charlie, Benny and Kevin, the last of whom HE FUCKIN’ KILLED

-

How did I ever reach this point WTF Robbie Thompson I will fight you

-

(clarification: I love Metatron as an antagonist and hoped he wouldn’t be killed for the sake of having more fun awfulness ahead of him. I wasn’t ready to call his story done. I got there last episode but dangit Robbie shoulda killed him)

-

Sam hauling Lucifer out over his shoulder though

I think Lucifer is riding shotgun

-

like

literally

-

Metatron: HERO STANCE

“spare the universe”

Remember when you just wanted to watch it all burn?

-

Holy shit she sent him to the Empty

SO LONG, METATRON

someone may actually pour one out for you because of that

-

Potholes!

-

Sam, you should run Amara over

-

This is like… uncomfortably narratively neat that they thought to include potholes

-

Ooh there’s 1 minute left

-

Okay new theory: Dean punches God for fucking up the suspension on the car and dropping it in the fucking storeroom

-

God, holding Kingdom beer (aka the beer of Heaven and often associated with Cas) “occasionally I do answer prayers”

-

I love that Misha got to act this reunion

-

but I want Cas back dangit

-

whyyy are we spending time on the new prophet guy

I’m wondering why we need him because the “see you later” aspect of it means he’s been seeded for a later plotline … the tablets were originally introduced as how God communicated with humanity after leaving the world behind then showing Prophets are a thing again in the lore means that once God is gone for whatever reason at the end of the season, the show wants to leave some way for him to talk to them, so it was necessary to clean up the confusion with Kevin and start over on this. more fixing their own mistakes…

-

I guess saving Dean having to deal with Casifer, written by someone else (Berens!), next episode

I can deal with that

-

welp Dean thinks he’s screwed

he and God are kind of stuck in the exact same scenario re: what they think will happen to them with Amara? They were heavily paralleled this episode - almost like their argument was two of the same entity butting heads, as Dean ends up so cosmically significant as the balance between God and Amara… (which I assume will be important now, that he is almost the mediator between them)

-

episode’s over and I’m genuinely not sure how I feel about it all :P I definitely liked the little details here and there… Overall impression: it stomped through a ton of plot points and left us set up for the end of the season, and Metatron was the only one who had to die for it, so that’s not such a big deal :P

-

also despite the whole cosmic firewall thing, Dean did not snog the Darkness (yay) or God.


	13. 11x22

11x22 watching notes

expectations: if Cas was the elephant in the room last episode, he’s got to at least be like, a rampaging woolly mammoth by now. 

not sure what to hope for aside from that :P

-

recap: includes Donatello, which is weird because they just put him on a taxi and sent him home. Kind of figured if they still needed him they’d keep him around without faffing?

-

also the entire plot of 11x21

maybe he was just there because of that

the recap was just God vs Amara in spirit - nothing about any other plot stuff/ANYONE’s emotional undercurrents

-

Lucifer is the first thing on screen and he’s continuing his touchtouchtouch habit of picking everything up in the Bunker. I have no idea why this amuses me so much. He’s deflecting from talking to God

-

I remain deeply conflicted about my desire to see Cas again vs how fun Lucifer is to watch. 

-

I can not believe by the title card this episode literally is the premise for the sitcom we had set up last episode: God’s got Lucifer literally and probably metaphorically grounded. Lucifer’s stuck in the Bunker with them (I don’t think he and Chuck CAN go anywhere right now) and no one’s talking about their problems

-

“Kids, huh?”

[laugh track]

-

Lucifer took Sam’s room. Are we literally dealing with this whole “guy who formally possessed me” trauma via the proxy of jokes about him stealing Sam’s room and being a stroppy teenager.

Sam invited Cas in there at the beginning of the season - seen in a Berens episode - so this is like a bookend to that for Sam. Being locked out of his own room by Lucifer after inviting Cas into it.

-

Do you think Crowley’s demons have a drinking game for Crowley’s motivational speeches? I’d feel sorry for him, but we’ve been kind of seeing him through the eyes of his demons for long enough that them staging a walk out seems long overdue :P I mean, this is a season 9 problem.

-

the Bunker has a hot plate for making pancakes on. This changes  _everything_  about the way we write fanfic

morning after pancakes is my favourite fanfic trope 

-

Chuck has taken over the kitchen, while Lucifer has Sam’s room - again, we were talking after 11x18 how the kitchen is sort of Dean’s space. Since Chuck spent so much of last episode mimicking Dean, really Lucifer picking Sam’s room is more of a confirmation they’re personally victimising a Winchester each.

And of course the kitchen is also Cas’s space now, but they’re all sitting around the kitchen island instead of at the table. You can see Cas’s spot at the table in the background from some shots. Literal empty space.

That “World’s Greatest Dad” mug is getting its ironic pay off almost every time Chuck shows up with it but I think this has to be the best use so far.

I think in Lucifer’s defence, which feels weird to type, he’s reacting to this attitude by behaving petulantly (more than normal :P) as the first conversation between God and Lucifer before Lucifer stomped off was, okay, probably too aggressive to have realistically got Chuck to be nice, still at least somewhat adult and Lucifer was asking Chuck for this apology that Chuck’s explaining he won’t give him? It was showing how they broke down the potential for communication. Now they’re just passive aggressively existing in the Bunker and Sam and Dean are caught in the crossfire.

-

Louisiana! I like this witch. She better survive the next scene :P

She starts off by being aware that Rowena tends to kill too many other witches when she doesn’t get along with them, but also of Rowena’s own ambition/self-preservation which, while negative character traits, actually back her up at this point :P I’m hoping this canny intelligence from the other witch will let her survive whatever Rowena’s offering

Rowena’s actual plan is terrible though. Go back in time to avoid the problem for a bit longer? While we have Lucifer and God refusing to talk and avoiding each other, avoidance of the issues seems to be the main theme

(ignoring Cas in favour of dealing with Lucifer and God… Even Hell staging a walk out rather than hearing Crowley out although for what good they might do :P)

-

Is Dean wearing new boots? I think he has black ones now. Maybe because he’s offsetting the fact he’s wearing vibrant purple… I’m assuming he had these boots for the last couple of episodes because I’m guessing the wardrobe continuity is to show how even if they’re in the bunker Sam and Dean have had no time to themselves to sleep/shower/whatever while this is going on - this isn’t relaxing downtime for them and their home is under siege from within…

-

“I did what I had to do”!! I guess Chuck is the source of that problem in this world. :P 

the Mark just made Lucifer more of what he already was says God, backing up all the meta about the Mark “changing” Dean from season 9 & 10 - always about bringing up your own inner darkness.

God bringing up the “Humanity” thing again - Cas’s non-presence in this conversation making itself known

Aaah Lucifer sounds like Cas. Misha’s voice is getting growlier as he gets angry so they’re practically indistinguishable as he yells at God… I guess he’s also being more earnest and emotionally honest: “What I was, was your son.” … I suppose the difference between the characters is their supposed sincerity. It’s Cas’s no1 character trait for writing him - that’s the entire angle to get at Cas and know how he’d act and respond in a situation. Not that Lucifer isn’t sincere sometimes, but it’s certainly not where you start with him.

he’s asking for favouritism over God’s “did what I had to do” horrible moral choices about how to keep the world safe for humanity.

And asks the Winchesters if they get what it’s like to argue with their father when their father is God. Bearing in mind that God is the John Winchester parallel on this show, not John being a God parallel, when it comes to established characterisation and primary place in the narrative. :P

Then he makes fun of the concept of “did what had to be done”

PUT THIS PHRASE TO REST

“big picture: you did what you had to do. Little picture, as a dad: YOU SUCKED.”

-

“I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but Lucifer is right.” 

[laugh track]

-

Sam empathises with Lucifer because of his own experiences of being John’s kid as that was how they were always set up - Lucifer once actually PREYED on those same insecurities and similarities but I guess in this bizarre scenario they’re finding themselves in, Sam’s having to look at it bigger picture than he’s ever looked at it before.

-

Hey! It’s the chess table at the top of the Bunker, last bothered to be shown on screen in 8x13 when Sam and Dean were first stepping into this place

and I was like “why is there a chessboard right at the top of the Bunker by the front door. Who even sits up there?”

Nobody. Sam and Dean probably are trying to work out where they even are in the Bunker.

-

“You were my father and you forsook me” This episode is such a tightrope walk of “I miss Cas and HE needs to say this shit to God too” and “OMG MISHA”

*grinds teeth*

Misha better get some sort of award for this performance to make it all worth it :P

-

Although Rob Benedict is trying to steal the limelight instead. 

-

Lucifer got his apology anyway. :P Now let’s get Cas back.

-

*Cas continues to be not got back*

Sam mentions that God brought him back those times

And aww confirmation that Gabriel is still kinda really dead. 

I like what God was saying about yin and yang though - we’ve been talking all season about this and then he confirms the themes of balance etc. 

-

Oh my god no don’t send Dean to get Crowley. Send anyone else. Why did DEAN suggest him.

“We both agree that ship has sailed” are we just removing the bro when Crowley says stuff about “bromantic rekindling” … What is canon anyway?

“That’s not what this is about.”

Dean is never going to be able to DENY he and Crowley were a couple to Crowley’s face, is he? :P

At this point Dean and Crowley as ex-lovers who have to awkwardly get past THAT elephant in the room every time they meet is possibly the worst thing on the show. :P Like, yep, having to ask my summer fling for help. 

-

AAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-

\- *pauses for breath*-

-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahh is Lucifer going to invoke Cas on these angels? Would that even HELP? I guess we were right guessing Cas was the one we saw in this tiny clip in the promo based entirely on the way Misha was angling his chin in that split second glimpse. I can’t tell who’s better at this - Misha for acting it or us for instinctively KNOWING.

He calls him his “jiminy cricket” so I guess he’s been getting some input from Cas on stuff?

I don’t want to press play again now I’m done screaming. :P Obviously Cas said yes to Lucifer because he wanted to have THIS fight so even if we’re grumpy about Cas still being possessed, Cas himself may be feeling like this gamble is finally paying off, especially now Lucifer’s cooperating and not hurting anyone. Like, he could be feeling almost vindicated right now if he was aware of what’s going on. 

I kind of don’t want to know how Cas is doing though :P I mean after the state we saw him in in 11x18 we’ve been so worried about him. If he seems completely fine then bleh. But he’s in a very different context than any emotional talk with anyone and Lucifer isn’t being actively threatened over his ownership of Cas… It’s a mess

Okay I’m going to have to suck it up and see how my poor Cas is doing, because I’ve paused it on Lucifer doing this pooping face and it’s not the best desktop background my laptop’s ever had… 

Caaas

*hugs him*

Being told that even showing his real face they don’t see any difference between him and Lucifer is HARSH. Lucifer and Cas have been quietly paralleled all season and it’s always Heaven seeing them in the same black and white way >.>

-

Why do I get the feeling Dean is having better luck with Crowley than Cas and Sam are with the ones they’ve been sent to get? :P

Rowena’s friend is a lot sharper than she is about this fight :P

-

Nooooo Cas don’t say that Lucifer is destroying you from the inside

SOMEONE SAVE CAS

Dean wouldn’t stand for this if he knew >.> 

“That’s my role in this fight.”

CAS NO.

Dangit is self worth is still exactly as bad as we thought, and so far he seems to be the only one on a serious suicide mission >.> Rowena’s friend is saying they have a chance to fight and win. THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE TEAM OPTIMISM, CAS

-

Oh we haven’t seen Dean and Crowley because Crowley’s been monologuing at him through all the rest of the back and forth.

-

Meanwhile: Dean is/was freaking out about not killing Amara, and Lucifer, looking at him all judgy from Cas’s face, calls her his girlfriend.

 _Everyone’s_  looking all judgy at Dean while he has his extremely confusing freak out about Amara

I’m not sure even Dean knew what that was about

-

Oooh this is why we saw Donatello in the recap. No one left him with adequate protection from Amara

lol and now he’s soulless. Not his week.

-

Aaaah is the Bunker under threat?

Aaaah Amara’s got in

AND took out the warding. Now the Bunker is just a house >.>

Oh good the mug died :P 

-

Rowena meeting God feels like this episode will be worth it whatever happens next. 

-

what happens next: “What about Cas”

Thanks Dean

“Your pet’s safety is my highest concern.”

NO IT’S NOT

-

it’s also not his which is even worse

-

Dean doesn’t look happy

-

Oh great Sam’s planning on taking the Mark

This plan is looking more and more sketchy and likely to fail than ever :P Dean’s like “AAAAH EVERYONE IS SACRIFICING THEMSELVES” 

… which makes it that much more likely Dean will leap in and sacrifice himself before Cas and Dam can do it >.>

-

Meanwhile, Amara is snooping and finds Dean’s photo of Mary.

-

Yikes there’s 10 minutes left. I feel like I’ve been watching this for 100 years (and dreading all of it :P)

-

Current dread: Amara kills Rowena AGAIN

-

Nooooo all her witch friends died

-

… Is Rowena okay standing that close to the smiting?

Someone look after her. 

-

Emily Swallow is probably not paid enough to pretend to fight an invisible cloud of demons while being levitated

-

Amara is not looking so good

-

She just got literally backstabbed.

I’m now starting to feel really sorry for her, just because she’s getting SO beaten up. 

Oh good they’re allowing her to talk anyway :P 

“What was my crime”

Yay she saying she she has her own story.

And telling it.

“You wanted to be big.”

-

I hope we’re meant to be rooting for Amara now :P Or at least for her and God to work things out and be happy and just leave Creation be.

Her talking about being locked away so long reminds me of Gadreel and how much he didn’t want to be locked away again - I’m assuming that will be her rage button too

-

Oh  my god are they actually going through with giving Sam the Mark?

*rage button*

-

Holy shit is Lucifer dead?

-

WHAT’S HAPPENING

-

Oh she took the Mark back

-

Yikes God is getting beat up too now 

Is God dead?

-

Who’s left???

-

Rowena isn’t dead at least

Rowena outlasts us all.

-

You can tell Cas is back because he’s more objectified than Rowena was while they’re both lying prone:

Cas shows skin when he’s in distress :P

* * *

Okay so Amara is planning to turn the whole world to ash now. Inclined to agree with her in the argument as a woman lashing out against her oppressors, but really. We proved talking helps earlier! Let’s talk this out and NOT all get fried?

-

WHAT IS ROWENA LOOKING AT

-

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH

-

…

there is a season 12 though so like, MotW in 4 episodes or less time.


	14. 11x23

11x23 watching notes

I wasn’t actually taking notes until I saw “Steve”’s horrendous staff photo for the Gas n Sip job and then I realised I had to probably keep track of my thoughts

Uuuh what’s happened so far

Hilarious start to the Road So Far, loved Sully popping up to start it… Way too much talking (not enough time to rock out and be emotional about the song :P) and then it ended sad and with no music on God dying, so that was a roller coaster

The first scene didn’t start with Dean prodding Cas awake but it did start with sleepy Cas anyway and then Dean delegated who he and Sam go poke awake so that was nice even if the episode didn’t literally start with the Destiel moment like I’d hoped it might. Picking who to start with the camera on and picking Cas over God is nice :P Just little storytelling priorities

Dabb cba with driving continuity yet so everyone gets teleported home, and Dean has his “welp I’m out” moment… Don’t know what they would have expected: he was completely sidelined on that fight as per the predictions since 11x14 that he’d be just a witness, and he got to witness them all fucking up and letting the sun crack (guess that was what that Tarot card was about for real then :P)

oh yeah the sun is… cracked.

Apparently this can happen.

Also I’m still 90% eye roll about using posh British characters but on the other hand she is clearly 100% eye roll about idiots who get the sun cracked open and I believe in Toni now. She seems the type to get things done, which is pretty much why you write posh British ladies with fancy houses. (As opposed to writing posh British men, who are stereotypically useless :P)

And that takes us to her “Look at these idiots who keep breaking the world” moodboard and the moment I realised I was rooting for her and took away the first 10% of my eye rolling about her :P

Anyone who’s been keeping close enough attention to link Jimmy to Godstiel’s selfie in the stained glass to Steve is clearly someone who has their head together. Also she knows his name. Or Cassiel, anyway, which is worryingly close enough.

She also has pictures of Leviathan and the CCTV of demon!Dean doing his thing… THEY might be able to work out it’s the First Blade and have some idea of the level of terrible crap the Winchesters have caused :P

More importantly… Does she know or care about the Winchester Gospels and to what degree? I generally think that of anyone who finds out about the Winchesters through outside investigation (Charlie got it right!) but considering what’s up with God right now that’s a really interesting question and maybe relevant to Dabb era’s entire approach to this (aside from the does-it-even-need-mentioning obviousness of killing God off :P

-

“On my way” … If this does not take over say 9 hours plus extra travel time to find the Winchesters… :P

-

Aww Dean tried to drag Cas on his beer run. I guess he wants to talk to him or “last night on earth” him or something

-

Aw Toni has a kid. So she’s here to subvert all the terrible tropes that happen to parents on this show, hopefully - e.g. NOT dying immediately. I spotted that “Henry Winchester - Killed at Initiation Massacre” post it note - her son is inescapably symbolic of John and not turning into the next generation of fucked up hunters who never knew their parents were in a secret society and went and died in another country/time (She’s confirmed for season 12 so she’s PRESUMABLY going to get through at least all of this in one piece? :P) but she did literally the exact same thing as Henry did in 8x12, kissing the kid while he was asleep and sneaking off without saying goodbye.

Rowena and Crowley are built around abandonment too, since 10x09 established she sold him for 6 pigs or whatever it was. Then obviously God starting the cycle, John perpetuating it, etc etc…

-

We get a peak in her bag, and aside from being indescribably more classy than the Winchester duffle bag, it’s got a pearl-handled gun with floral designs, and a MoL bunker key on top, so you know, parallels. :P

-

Meanwhile: the entire Bunker is full of people who are drinking and ignoring the problem of the sun. Sam is not paid enough for this shit. I can’t believe Rowena x Chuck is actually kicking off. I *genuinely* feel sorry for Crowley.

-

“Amara’s out there eating the freakin’ sun”

How did we *get* here

-

Crowley appears to have been waiting for someone to say they have to kill her without raising his own hand in class. Possibly because by this point he knows suggesting anything like that will get him told to shut up, but the Winchesters are the moral compass - as the token humanity representation in the Bunker - and also more than dark enough to suggest terrible things if you give the enough time to ansgt through it and make a hard choice.

-

Meanwhile: Dean and Cas are driving together and my heart just stopped

EYES ON THE ROAD DEAN

YES KEEP VALIDATING CAS THANK YOU DEAN.

I *knew* Cas would say “it didn’t work” and I’m so glad even with the end times coming, Dean wants to reassure him he made the right choice.

“We forget about everyone else” yessss Dean admitting the probleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeem

Aww, and Dean managed to call him “best friend” and “our brother” when neither of them were trying to kill the other or fighting about anything and using those terms as emotional blackmail. A+ COMMUNICATION, DEAN.

I’ll take it :P They can work on their UST next season. Even without Sam there that conversation was about how Dean AND Sam treat Cas (which also goes back to at least season 10, where Sam took advantage of Cas’s willingness to help as well without considering how he was doing - they’re BOTH to blame for it. So that was Dean speaking on both their behalfs, hence the “our”… I’m gonna assume there’s wank about this but I’m just happy that this is hopefully laying to rest the systematic neglect of Cas from Winchesters plural - and it’s much easier for Dean to think about what Cas means to them BOTH because from the perspective of how TFW as a unit operates, it SHOULD be like this… Cas may mean more to Dean personally for the obvious having a ridiculous crush reasons (this does not invalidate their personal romantic subtext that was still happening as of last episode) but this was blatantly dragging Sam in and making it about the general failure of the team and how they should see each other and act around each other. And I can’t remember Cas ever getting included like this… I’m trying to think of any time Dean told Cas he was family except for post-6x20 betrayal or while being nearly murdered in 8x17? Baby steps. Yikes. :P)

-

They basically ended up just going for a drive to air all this. Heh.

-

Cas came up with the soul thing… Oh dear. He knows about it first hand >.> So 2 oblique Godstiel references in one episode so far.

(If Cas doesn’t get to talk to God, it’s because Dean dragged him on their ill-fated beer run - I like the whole “Crowley unearths tons of alcohol in the Bunker” contrast to prove that Dean really didn’t need to go on a drive for any reason but to clear his head and chat to Cas)

-

Meanwhile, Amara is having some second throughts about destroying Creation? Flowers are nice. Let’s start there. :P

-

Dean, don’t do the accent. Just… don’t.

-

They’d have been eaten alive if they went in this asylum in season 1. I feel terrible for the poor babby Winchesters. Look how far they’ve come. :P

For once the Ghostbusters reference was actually valid. They literally did the ghost trapping thing.

-

Hey Billie :3

-

She gets to make a dramatic entrance because no matter how little time left, you can ALWAYS walk slowly down a corridor and open a door magically a few moments before you walk through it.

-

Amara doesn’t want to feed pigeons because she’s scared she’ll get attached. Random pigeon lady may have just helped save the universe by explaining the complexity of family relationships to her. There’s a lot of 11x11 in here, between Lucifer feeding seagulls and enjoying nature, to talk of retirement homes and choosing how to live the end of your life.

-

Is Billie emptying the veil of all the nonsense that built up since season 9

pffttttttt

-

Kevin probably got moved on just so we don’t have an “AAAH KEVIN” fridge horror moment about this

-

It has to be Cas to suggest that Dean goes to Amara… Again with 11x11 - Lucifer originally had this idea about using Dean to get close to Amara and exploiting the connection. Cas doesn’t look super happy to say it, but Dean did just say he wanted to go down swinging at the start of the episode in Cas’s presence so if Cas carries on being brutally tactical it’s not just making decisions that affect himself…

I suspect if this episode IS doing housekeeping on all of the show’s nonsense, from neglecting Cas to souls in the veil, then dealing with “Dean wants to go out swinging” is a priority of using him like this. He has to see that he doesn’t HAVE to die to resolve anything.

Cas seems to be making all the tough decisions for them this episode, possibly just to celebrate him being back, possibly because of the “if Cas was here we’d sort this out by the end of the day and everything would be fine” factor that plagues this show :P

-

Dean full of hundreds of thousands of souls = Dean “humanity” Winchester, taking the fight to Amara with just him and the power that comes innately from humanity. If it’s got to be fought, it’s got to be fought on our terms. Not God or Lucifer or even demons and angels. Normal people.

-

Of course Cas asks how Dean is first before anyone else gets in a word

-

Okay, so Toni took a private flight, so who knows when she got here. :P

-

Did we just skip Dean hugging Cas while Sam was making me sad about saying goodbye to Mary again

-

No Dean reached for him, then dived past him to Rowena and Chuck, then Cas came back for a hug because Dean was avoiding him… Just bobbing around behind him like “pay attention to meeee” :P

More shoulder touuuching… that was their kiss goodbye then :( And Cas offers to go with Dean and I think the only reason Dean says no is to make sure Cas stays and looks after Sam… Cas kinda wanted to go die with Dean and I’m not okay. This episode is very quietly about Cas’s devotion to Dean >.>

-

Also Chuck feels bad about it all. I hate speculating as I go because I tend to type a lot of wrong things but this just does not seem like the answer… Neither of them (Chuck or Amara) are happy about it.

-

“no chick flick moments”  
“you love chick flicks”  
“yeah I do”

if this episode gave us nothing else… *laughs through my sadness about him wandering off to die, that Dean’s stupid projecting bullcrap got called out by Sam - who he mostly does it for in the first place - and Dean admitted it* Mostly because he’s wandering off to die, but shh. Dying words count even if you say they don’t, Dean.

Goodbye season 1 episode 1 “character trait” people keep trying to pretend Dean actually meant and we’ve had to put up with 11 years of “yeah but he secretly LIKES chick flicks LOOK HOW OFTEN HE QUOTES AND REFERENCES THEM”

Well it’s not ~secret~ any more!

(I’m still personally more amused by the souls in the veil solution but I suppose this sits a close second)

-

Oh goddd Cas’s face - one last mournful look at Dean after he lets go of Sam, wedged in between that and him heading to God to get sent to Amara… Just the choice to go Sam > Cas > God even after Dean’s hugged Cas goodbye in the original priority order of God > Cas > Sam for the heartfelt stuff… He seems to have settled everything with Sam as far as he can, but stuff with Cas is blatantly left unresolved just because their final words don’t cover everything - Cas wanting to go with Dean but being told no for Sam’s sake, Cas still looking at Dean and things unsaid… HE WAS OFFERING TO GO WITH HIM. And that was only rejected for Sam’s sake, not addressing the personal stuff between them (TFW as a unit vs Dean n Cas’s personal crap alone, AGAIN) And then Dean is gone.

-

I’m still expecting Toni to show up at the last minute and just fix everything after this goes catastrophically wrong. There’s 10 minutes left

-

Oh no, the garden is dying.

-

Team End Is Nigh go to the pub. The “Lazy Shag”… Well I’m cackling. The sign has a shag (a bird) on it but. I mean.

The era of SuperBritish is dawning.

-

Okay Cas is actively avoiding talking to God. “He looks horrible” *doesn’t go over to have a heart to heart*

-

*Sam goes over to have a heart to heart*

-

After Dean has told Amara that Chuck doesn’t want the world to end either

this is literally the biggest show of sibling miscommunication ever

they’re now basically letting the world end because they don’t understand each other

-

Starting to think that they’ll resolve the Amara and Chuck stuff, but then they go back to the Bunker and they’re just locked out and Toni’s giving the bunker a spring clean and refusing to let them back in

-

Dean trying to give Amara the family counselling 3rd times the charm I was talking about where talking from fucked up sibling experiences he can actually reach her

“that’s why you wanted me. maybe deep down you didn’t really want me” hahahaha now even Dean is calling bullshit on the Dean x Amara stuff

-

“MAYBE THERE’S A DIFFERENT WAY”

“What do you WANT”

I’m feeling like the meta community as a whole is getting extremely vindicated today by Dabb casually coughing up every single major theme we’ve latched onto and bringing it into play in a way where it’s getting turned on its head or answered or just used for dramatic effect to show what’s changed

-

There’s 5 minutes left. WTF is Toni going to do

-

(She hasn’t been on screen for like 15 minutes but my brain keeps latching onto her with anticipation)

-

Aha Amara grabbed Chuck. I hope Sam doesn’t think he poofed out of existence and that’s the end times :P

-

Holy shiiit “I hated you for making other things. For NEEDING something else. Something that wasn’t me”

Maybe I’m just down in season 8 as well in my rewatch but all the “i need yous” for Cas from Dean -> Sam saying “trust another vampire, another angel over me” or whatever - that deeply buried jealously/insecurity Sam felt over Dean’s other attachments… And on Dean’s side of course his complaints that Sam didn’t look for him in Purgatory (already addressed in 11x11) but being in part about “some girl” and his fixation on the dog -> Dean having to dump and then kill Benny for the sake of Sam, enforcing their isolation… Sam and Dean in that cabin in 8x10 after rejecting all their outside influences = Amara and God before this round of Creation, jealous and angry about their attempts to have something else.

This is, like, permission for Dean to have Cas as their third wheel (by Dabb’s own 8x08 definition) - the Dean/Cas stuff in this episode has been about third wheel Cas not about Dean and Cas alone and this is WHY

It’s about how Sam and Dean deal with having Cas in their dynamic. (Please PLEASE let this mean he can be with them next season.)

-

Also I’ve spent over a week procrastinating watching the end of 8x20 because I hate that moment so much where Charlie asks Dean if he’s going to let Sam go and he’s like “never” and Charlie’s like “cool beans the codependency is awesome!!”

-

@ Andrew Dabb: I see what you’re doing and thanks for un-fucking Carver era :P

-

little bit worried about Amara and Chuck sorting things out but leaving Dean as a bomb

Maybe they’ll use the souls to restart the sun

-

Wait did I just speculate that they are going to fling Dean into the sun

why is that even something backed up at multiple points in canon that I just naturally typed it without even thinking about how weird it sounded

-

they are not going to fling Dean into the fucking sun, I won’t allow it

-

Emily Swallow is fantastic

-

Amara loves Creation! Yay!

-

There is something borderline marraige-y about this

-

Oh yey they put the Sun back

-

I loved that shot of the pool ball on the table with the sun falling on it - metaphor for the Earth to save on a shot from space because that shit is expensive :P

(Also the shot of Cas with the sun coming through the blinds behind him is very very much like in 11x10 when he meets Amara and she draws the darkness back into her and the sun appears behind him there… I love that they use Cas to show this :D)

-

Hahahahaha oh man, Team End Is Nigh come out the pub and look up in the sky and they have the “Frodo nooo!” moment after Sauron exploded in Return of the King and guess who is the one who voices the thought that it means Dean is dead, with teary eyes

(Cas being kept around to say really grim things no one else wants to say)

-

Aw no there’s a power cut! I hope this isn’t related to any end of the world consequences of what just happened because it SEEMED like everything was fixed. Yay for laptop batteries I guess. *switches to watching on the little screen* >.>

-

“Earth will be fine. It’s got you!”

No pressure or anything, Dean “Humanity” Winchester

Considering we’re on 39/42 minutes I’m definitely going for “Toni locks them out the Bunker, won’t let them back in until they have their shit together”

-

What on earth was Amara talking about with giving Dean what he needed most?

-

Wait

what

Is Toni okay?? Who is standing bleeding in the Bunker??

-

Cas trying to console Sam about Dean being dead. Whoops :P

-

Aaaaaaah WHY WOULD YOU BANISH CAS THAT IS SO RUDE

SO FUCKIN’ RUDE

WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT TONI

-

… To  buy yourself alone time with Sam, okay.

She had better give him shit about installing a mini fridge in the library

or putting his feet on the chairs

-

oh okay, “archangels, leviathan, the Darkness”

Yeah I suppose that’s fair dos

-

Oh pfft Sam

THIS IS WHAT MISCOMMUNICATION DOES

-

(Cas as a third wheel: meant to be the “stability” to stop Sam going off the rails with the dead Dean scenario: Cas is banished and wow what does Sam do? Walk right at the lady waving a gun in his face)

-

Well we know just one bullet doesn’t take down Sam Fuckin’ Winchester, so presumably Dean’s going to get back, find angel banishing on the walls, a puddle of blood where Sam was, and be like “!??” but Sam will be off in London getting the third degree for rewiring the Bunker library and letting Cas blow up the store room door.

-

Oh jeeze if that’s really Mary back for real and not her ghost like we were expecting (and I FORGOT about her), now we have to stress about them fridging her again.

Uh I mean

Holy shit! Mary! Wow!

-

They really did reverse the entire show - river ends at the source, alpha and omega, the whole nine yards.

-

Billie is SHITTING herself somewhere right now

-

“WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH THE WINCHESTERS.”  
“I TELL SAM AND DEAN THERE’S NO TAKEBACKSIES ON DEATH SO WHO SHOWS UP?”  
“YOU DO THEM ONE FAVOUR, ONE.”  
“NEVER HELP A WINCHESTER”  
“AT LEAST SAM SEEMS TO BE DYING AGAIN”

(oh god it better not be a natural balance trade - you get two Winchesters only so Mary back inevitably doomed Sam to be shot)

-

The peeps rooting for Amara as eventually a dark mother figure have some vindication here: she trades herself out in the end for a white-dress-clad mother figure

-

Maybe this is what all the retirement home stuff is about - even though Mary is still relatively young, it would be pretty nice for her to get her house in the suburbs and not hunt… once she’s helped them sort out this mess. >.>

-

The funniest thing about this is that last night when I couldn’t sleep I was thinking about that Parks and Rec meme with Jean Ralphio’s account of some big night out, and in the middle he goes “MOM!?” completely out of context, and, still assuming we’d just see her ghost at some point, I thought that meme might be funny to try applying to the episode, but instead Dean pretty much just said it instead.

…

Well I have no internet until the power comes back on so I’ll just freak out by myself about this episode. *I’ll Just Wait Here Then playing in the background*

\- so Toni/ the British MoL are the antagonists… (pfft I’m down to around 60% eye rolling at this concept and mostly because I like Toni because we’re probably not going to get a female James Bond any time soon so a monster (or… Winchester) hunting one will have to do and she seems to fit the ticket :P) THANKFULLY the world and the Winchesters are back to a state where NORMAL HUMAN ANTAGONISTS are a thing. I mean they have spells and stuff, but so do the Winchesters. They’re equally matched.

\- which means with Rowena and Crowley being their BFFs (Dean even stocks Crowley’s brand of scotch, and they do seem to keep teabags for Rowena, possibly only because after capturing her and chaining her up so many times and getting sassed about bringing her tea has made them cave) the “witches v MoL” thing has put the Winchesters on the side of lawless, “jumped up hunters” or whatever she called Sam, and actually statistically likely to incite the “witches vs” side of things on their behalf. Despite a female representative showing up, “the old men have decided enough’s enough” so Toni really is just potentially the SYMPATHETIC, possibly recruitable side of things who may be swung to their cause (either by ep. 3 of season 12 as per the formula curse, or just in the nick of time by the end - she may need a bit more character development depending on how loyal she is) ANYWAY it’s an Old White Guys (and even worse - old BRITISH white guys) antagonist, which is always fun for the opposing side to look super liberal in comparison

\- (I’m going to be busy next season blaming Old White British Guys for everything from the trains running late to this Brexit nonsense since it’s pretty likely they’re going to also be powerful politician types so that will be fun)

\- Cas thinks Dean is dead and has been blasted off to enjoy the beach episode all by himself, which is the least good way that episode possibly could have happened but on the other hand is tropey and angsty and Sam’s too busy ALSO being dead and/or kidnapped by Toni to stress about this exclusively so Cas is now carrying the whole “Dean’s dead” emo burden so that will be fun

\- “MOM?!”

\- She’s gonna meet Cas at some point probably when he gets back from his Depressing Beach Vacation

\- which isn’t something we ever even reasonably speculated so OTT headcanons on that over the summer are going to be fun

\- I vote the good old “he’s an angel” thing and Mary just assumes Dean means Cas is his boyfriend and is super supportive and Dean and Cas have no idea why she is being like this

\- Dean n Cas still seem to be in love with each other, in their normal depressing star-crossed, subtextual way, so the natural order carries on ticking there. Dean scraped by my personal standards for apologising to Cas and exceeded his OWN expectations for managing to tell Cas he was important and family and all that stuff and no one got punched in the face in order to say it so once Cas stops thinking Dean is dead and they find their way back to each other, maybe they can spend some time together on screen >.>

\- Omg the power is back on. INTERNET <3

\- (I have no thoughts on Chuck and Amara disappearing off because we speculated that one to death practically before season 11 started, and then it happened basically bang on schedule, so in a way it feels like we’ve already written everything that we could write about it and now we just gesture at it?)


End file.
